


Enough

by YingCas



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like every single one of my stories had moral dilemmas as a tag, Internalized Homophobia, It'll be okay though, Kind of Growing up together, Lots of healing, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas, Self-Harm, Smoking, Trainee, Trainee Life, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and healing from that, canton bros, come and find out, hate comments, i'll add tags as i go, lots of fun times with wayv, now THAT sounds like fun doesn't it, this is so difficult, what is a story that doesn't contain any?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26395822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YingCas/pseuds/YingCas
Summary: Guanheng knew that he could never truly understand the darkness lingering around Dejun’s heart. But he could try to love him. For as long as he'd let him.From trainee life to debut to the future ahead, a story of growing up and love - in all of its forms.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 138
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. Like, a really long time. Over a year. Ever since WayV debuted I wanted to write some canon compliant for it but I just… procrastinated, couldn’t come up with a good plot, something like that. I had so many unfinished Xiaodery drafts on my old computer, soooo many, so I finally decided to MAKE SOMETHING. So here we are.
> 
> Warning and disclaimer (feel free to skip if you’re not in the mood):  
> This story deals with quite a few difficult topics: Bullying, depression, and so on. I felt very hesitant to post this at first because Dejun has mentioned having difficult experiences in the past with these things. However. Although I use real-life people and their lives as inspiration, I DO NOT KNOW THEM, and this story is a piece of fiction. I feel like writing about difficult things makes talking about them easier. But I’m not pretending to be a professional, don’t take anything you see here at face value. 
> 
> Anyways, let’s gooooooooo

_When only silence haunts you  
_ _And no one really understands you  
_ _Pick yourself right back up  
_ _You’re better than just good enough_

_Good Enough by Annica Milan and Kimmo Blom_

* * *

Nothing.

Nothing was certain, nothing could be trusted, nothing about them was good enough that it couldn’t be taken out and altered at any time. That was how the trainee program worked - they were broken into millions of pieces and then built up again, better and more like the company wanted them to be. Everyone knew that.

Guanheng was born average. In his eyes, all kids were cute so he never saw anything out of the ordinary in his baby pictures. However, he grew up to be quite handsome - handsome enough that he got pulled into the world of entertainment without him even really trying.

Okay, maybe he got pulled in just because of his face. Maybe it secured him a place for longer, maybe the company was far more hesitant to kick him out because his looks alone held so much potential. His dancing, rapping, and vocals didn’t need to be sharp A quality because his face already was. He knew that he had it easier in comparison to many others. However, he needed to work hard, still, because he wanted to be good. He wanted to be the best. 

He wasn't. By the time he entered the company, there were already so many people there whose level he could never reach. The Lees, Taeyong and Mark, did everything so well, they had outshined many other trainees who had been there for longer than them. They were months away from debuting in the huge mega-group that Guanheng could maybe join too, later, if he was good enough

He doubted it. But he tried his best - at first, he had joined out of curiosity but the more time he spent in the practice rooms, the more determined he became. The more time and energy, resources that he put in, the more greedy and desperate he became.

Many trainees came and climbed to the top within a few months. Those who didn’t, well… It didn’t look very good for them. As some climbed up, some fell. _Most_ fell. 

Guanheng saw it happen all around him, while he just… was. He wasn’t really moving up or down, he just existed, took classes regularly, and passed the monthly evaluations alright. He couldn’t be too frustrated when he saw people climbing up fast, because he saw so many get kicked out easily as well. He rolled his eyes at the so-called _flashes,_ the shooting stars who entered the company knowing that they would have a secure place to debut in. But, for one flash there were fifty nameless guys who just disappeared.

Zhong Chenle was one of those kids that came and rose to fame during Guanheng’s trainee time, just like that. He was technically never even a trainee, he just… came and debuted. A person just a step down from Chenle, but just as quick and above normal trainee standards was... Xiao Dejun. 

When Guanheng had been a trainee for a year and had slowly but steadily made his way to the group of _“not in danger of getting kicked out just like that anymore, likely to debut in a few years if everything goes according to plan (fun fact: it never does)”, a_ new trainee was put there with them. There were maybe eight or nine of them at the time, their dance instructor brought the boy to the practice room when they were resting after a particularly draining series of steps.

“Hello everyone, I’m Xiao Dejun”, the boy introduced himself in awkward Mandarin, since the guys there were all more or less Chinese. “I’m seventeen years old and I’m from Guangzhou. Nice to meet you all”

As he bowed, Yangyang hit Guanheng painfully with his elbow.

“Ayyy another Canton brother for you”, the younger sung and Guanheng rolled his eyes. When he had entered the company, he had made sure that everyone knew that he was Cantonese. He was proud of his roots, he treasured the language and it sort of became his thing. His brand. His strong feelings about his heritage had become a running gag - _eyoo this is Guanheng from Macau, I speak Cantonese and I’m a gambler._

Whatever. At least he wasn’t _Gu Ren Gui_ _Kun-ge._

Xiao Dejun from Guangzhou didn’t look all that special at first. Just another Chinese guy. What made him special, however, was the fact that he was made to practice with _them_ on his first day.

There were three levels for trainees in SM, generally. First, there was the border group, where people changed all the time - new people come in and are kicked out soon after their potential is proven to be too small. Then there was their group, more steady but still uncertain, and the project group where he had lost his only other Canton bro, Yukhei, just a few months before. He and Yukhei (or should he call him Lucas now?) had entered the company a few months apart, and they had entered the middle group at the same time as well. Only, Yukhei had been picked up from the middle group quickly, to act in music videos and to join NCT. He was currently working hard to hopefully debut when the year changed. 

Guanheng understood why it had gone this way. Yukhei wasn’t only handsome but he knew how to use his looks as well. He was charming and managed to find a way to turn his lack of language ability into an asset that made him memorable and also, he had a unique voice in NCT. Guanheng was much more forgettable and average. He and Yukhei were - or had been at least - friends, so he was happy for him.

But that didn't mean that he didn't feel jealous. 

Every other trainee was his enemy at the end of the day. It was a difficult dynamic to live in. They were constantly put against each other, that was the whole point of the missions and evaluations. But at the same time, they were required to work together seamlessly. Whenever they practiced, they had to point out each other’s flaws to make their shared performance perfect. When at the same time, deep in their hearts, they kept hoping for the others to mess up so badly that they would get kicked out. No one would admit it out loud, but that was the reality they lived in.

They comforted each other and dried each other’s tears, while simultaneously hoping that the people around them got crushed. They seemed to live in constant darkness and bitter state, hoping for destruction to the people closest to them. 

Guanheng had never _in his life_ hated himself and his dark side as much as he did during his trainee period. When he eyed Xiao Dejun, who had been instantly promoted to the same level that he had needed a year of practice to reach, he… felt the familiar sting of envy in his heart.

With Dejun, there were ten hopefuls in the middle group. NCT China was coming, that was the only thing that they could debut in. NCT already had five Chinese guys in it (if he counted Yukhei and Kun), and the company was planning to add Ten there too. So, there were six people already in the lineup - how many debut spots were there, even, in the first place? SM hated even numbers, so there were only a couple of options: one or three. 

The odds were against him. The other guys were all really good, and since Guanheng knew them and had experienced lots of things with them in the past that had made them close, Xiao Dejun from Guangzhou was nothing but an enemy to him. Period.

After a few days of having the new guy practice with them, Guanheng realized that maybe he wasn’t that much of an enemy to him as he had thought. Kun was a vocalist, Ten was a vocalist, Renjun and Chenle were vocals and Sicheng and Yukhei… they were something in between, so Guanheng focused on his rapping. Most of the trainees in the middle group were rappers and dancers, the average singers were kicked out quite soon as well, and so, ten became eight.

Dejun became his roommate as Dahai got kicked out. Guanheng had never particularly liked Dahai, the 98’ liner from Beijing had been clingy and always got on his nerves. Still, changing roommates felt weird. He had roomed with Dahai for so long, he had gotten used to his clinginess.

Xiao Dejun listened to him and stayed out of his way. They hardly ever clashed so Guanheng started to almost like the guy - as much as he could, while still being a bit envious of him and how much the company liked him. But, the company liked Guanheng too. They might both get kicked out or even make it together, he stayed neutral and treated him fairly, and Dejun seemed to do the same.

“Hey, Heng, wait!” 

Guanheng turned around, to see Ten catch up to him in the hallway. He was wearing a regular training outfit with a sleeveless top and sweats - of course, since they were on the floor with the most practice rooms. Guanheng had been on his way to his rap lesson early this time. He had lots of polishing to do and he had intended to do it all alone before the teachers showed up.

But he would always stop and listen to Ten. Because Ten was, you know, Ten.

“Hi hyung, what’s up?” Ten had been diligently studying Chinese but Guanheng felt more comfortable talking to him in Korean or even English. Mandarin pronunciation was a minefield that Ten had yet to commit to memory, it was much easier and quicker to use a language Ten was better at. Guanheng knew that he wasn’t really helping the older by doing this but he was impatient.

“I heard that you got another trainee”, Ten said in Mandarin, a bit broken but okay Mandarin, and continued walking so Guanheng did too. He must have seen the laptop and the pile of papers tucked under Guanheng’s arm and guessed where he was going. “A really good one”

“Xiao Dejun”, Guanheng nodded. It hadn’t been very long since he had come and Ten had been busy with his own training. “He is alright”

“Oh, so that’s his name”, Ten nodded slowly. “He introduced himself to me as Dj Xiao”

“Dj Xiao”, Guanheng chuckled. Cringy. “Wait, so you have met him?”

“Yeah, briefly when we did some company exercises on Monday”, he said and opened the door for the stairway for Guanheng. He thanked him and decided not to nag on his word choice this time. Ten was only learning phrases now, he would advance naturally soon. 

“On Monday”, Guanheng said instead. Where had he been? Oh, right, how could he forget - at a plastic surgeon who had stared at his face from different angles and hummed to himself and written lots of stuff down before sending Guanheng away again. All trainees went through that every now and then, the company wanted to know just how much more pretty they could make the trainees. For the younger ones, they even used bone structure maps or some shit, to see how their faces would mature and whether they would mature ‘right’. Cute teenagers might grow up to be ugly adults and that was a no-no for a company like SM.

“Yeah”, Ten said. He was still slow in the stairs as his foot was still healing, but he managed. “He was cute, he has my 7th Sense promo picture as his phone wallpaper”

“No way”, Guanheng said. “Is he… is he a fanboy?”

“That was something that I was about to ask you”, Ten smiled. “Is he… is he one? Who is he anyway, is he any good? I don’t know anything about him really, he was too starstruck to even talk to me”

“Ge, with all due respect, you are a celebrity now. Anyone would be starstruck”, Guanheng said and meant it. Even he had been a bit hesitant to talk to him at first when he had come in 2016 because Ten had been so experienced and famous already. Dejun wasn’t that weird for being a fan of his.

Otherwise… What could he tell Ten about him? Dejun was quiet, a bit awkward at times, but… that was pretty much it. He was a good singer and a good roommate. Guanheng hadn’t gotten to know him better and he wasn’t going to, not very soon at least. Because he didn’t care. Being a trainee, he had learned that making friends and getting attached to people was generally a bad idea.

But they lived together. Of course, the world would push them closer. Guanheng generally fell asleep fast but Dejun was even faster. Guanheng got used to the other guy’s sleeping habits quite quickly. Dejun wasn’t a noisy sleeper but he tossed and turned a lot before falling asleep, and sometimes he muttered something incoherent.

Every now and then, Guanheng heard him cry at night. It wasn't that big of a surprise - everyone cried. Most tried to hide it, and they did it either in the bathroom or when they were left alone in the practice rooms. Even Yangyang, the untouchable international boy who had befriended basically every one of their seniors and was always full of energy, cried in the bathroom when he thought no one could hear. 

The pressure was high, everyone was far from home and they were pushed down again and again and again and nothing seemed to be enough. Ever. And their parents missed them and their grandparents were getting older. They had to let go of so many things to fulfill a dream that might not even have been so big at first, but which they couldn’t let go of anymore because they had sacrificed too much to just give up now. Anyone would cry in a place like that. 

Right from the start, Guanheng had noticed how emotional Dejun was. How strongly he reacted to everything but also, how he talked about the castle in his mind and sung soft guitar ballads. He liked Twilight unironically and had such naive, romantic dreams that he had only mentioned a few times but which were a big part of who he was. 

Of course, he cried.

Guanheng laid on his bed, staring at the bottom of Dejun’s one and just listened. He didn’t feel angry, Dejun was so quiet that it didn’t bother him and he could sleep if he wanted to. Instead, he laid there in the quietness and thought to himself.

By the end of November, Dejun’s nerves had been tested so many times that he had cried elsewhere too. Everyone had heard of the crying Xiao kid and poked fun at Dejun for it behind his back. Guanheng rolled his eyes and told them to stop whenever he heard it - seriously, he was sick and tired of the immature nature of some of the trainees, especially the ones who were in the group considered below them. They looked for any signs that could make someone above them weak and used it to drag them down. Whether it was their looks or abilities or faults in their persona or language skills - certain trainees grouped up and pulled the others down.

Guanheng had always felt sad that he couldn’t experience normal school life. But with these brats over here, he felt like he got to feel the most disgusting parts of high school. 

And he stopped regretting.

“Did you hear what Jihoon and Yeeun were talking about yesterday?” Yangyang sat down next to him on his bed, sucking on a lollipop. Yangyang had a serious sugar addiction, he was always consuming some.

“No”, Guanheng said. He wasn’t nearly as invested in the gossip, nor did he care as much as Yangyang who knew everything and everyone. 

“They said”, Yangyang took the half-eaten lollipop out of his mouth and pointed at Guanheng with it. “That you’re gay”

“Oh, did they”, Guanheng turned back to his phone and tried to ignore the lollipop looming dangerously close to his fringe. “It’s been a while since last time - how long, a month, maybe?”

“Yeah yeah but that’s not the main thing”, Yangyang insisted. “They said that the Dejun is one as well. And that you have something going on with him!”

Claiming that someone was gay was the easiest way to make the company dislike someone. South Korea was incredibly traditional as it was, and especially for trainees, possible future idols, having a gay in their ranks was… not a good thing. They shared tight living space, showers, changing rooms, everything, a gay person just wouldn’t fit in. No one wanted a gay person there with them, because the assholes believed that it would get them in danger or something.

Sometimes, in rare passing moments, Guanheng understood their concern. But most of the time he didn’t, he couldn’t understand it at all. 

But the company understood. And placed a big fat red stamp next to the gay trainee’s name and sent them home.

“That’s just ridiculous”, Guanheng snorted. “I’ve just told them to stop bullying him”

“Well, apparently that’s enough proof”, Yangyang was generally just a messenger, rarely the one to give his own opinion on anything. “No one else bothers to do that. He is a goner already, he won’t make it past the new year”

Maybe. They both looked through the still-open door into the living room where a bunch of trainees were playing video games and shouting over each other. Dejun was there too - he was sitting by the table, with his notebook laid open in front of him. But he wasn’t looking at it - he was biting his lip and eyeing at the others, looking like he wanted to join but didn’t know how to take the first step.

That was one of the reasons why he had never become the part of the big trainee gang and why people found it so easy to talk shit about him - because it didn’t feel like he was one of them. He was just a privileged guy thrown in and further up without really earning it.

Of course, he earned it. The company saw something in him and the company was never wrong. But to the others… they felt wronged and for a good reason. It was easier to blame Dejun than anyone else. And it was easy to call him gay because he wasn’t trying to be overly manly and cool and over the top. He was sensitive and… corny.

Guanheng would much rather have a dorm full of Dejuns than what he had now. Even if he was gay like they said (they usually just made up most of the rumors but Guanheng knew that these rarely came out of nowhere) he wouldn’t mind. He wasn’t as stuck up and disgusting as the most. 

When December rolled around, both Jihoon and Yeeun were kicked out. As were half a dozen other trainees over the age of nineteen who were not Chinese. Because SM had no interest in debuting anything other than NCT China in the next few years.

Suddenly Guanheng, having turned eighteen a few months ago, was one of the oldest trainees in the company. His time as a trainee was going to end in two years max - he was either going to debut or be kicked out but either way, it was going to end. That… He found comfort in that thought, in some weird way. 

And then, the year finally changed.

Guanheng watched the new year’s fireworks from the dorm window with Yukhei, who had a free night. Yukhei had comfort for his soul now too, now that he was guaranteed a debut spot. He was stressed, pressured, and scared, but he was an SM rookie now. He was _something._

Yukhei and Guanheng shared crunched Pringles chips and Coca-cola and talked like they used to. In Cantonese so that no one else would understand, they stared at the dark, now decorated city and talked about everything that they had on their hearts. Yukhei talked about his troubles with the other NCT members and his worries over what was to come, Guanheng opened up about the new training project and the incredibly hard choreo that no one had been able to learn - honestly, he doubted his trainers even intended anyone to learn it, rather, they were trying to humiliate them and see who managed to get to the other side with some dignity left. The usual.

They sat in the small living room, and no one bothered them. The others couldn’t understand them nor did they care, most of them went out to celebrate anyway. At some point, the dorm got empty and Guanheng and Yukhei could talk about everything they wanted to, without fearing that the others could recognize their names in the middle or learned to crack the code. 

“Who do you think will make it?” Yukhei asked and took a swing of his Coca-cola. They would both be of age in Korea in just a few hours too, but Guanheng didn’t find it nearly as exciting as he had a year or a few ago. Now nothing would protect him from the _fabulous_ work ethics of SM.

“I honestly don’t know”, he shook his head. “I feel like we’re all quite similar, I don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us.”

“Mmh, it’s always hard to say”, Yukhei agreed. He offered the coke to Guanheng who took a swing as well - they were living with so little money, they had to share their snacks. They only had two cans of coke and they had drunk one already. 

“What about… who was it, Xiao Dejun from Guangzhou?” Yukhei asked. “What do you think about him? Is he a threat?”

Yukhei was biased alright. Guanheng hummed. 

"I wouldn't say so", he answered, shaking his head. "Like, he is a great singer but he keeps messing his dancing and honestly, I feel like his biggest flaw isn't his skill set - it's his nerves" 

"Oh", Yukhei nodded, understanding. "Some people just aren't mean to do this" 

"Yeah"

A door closed. It wasn’t slammed, it was done rather quietly but it happened just when they got quiet as well. And… it wasn’t the front door. Guanheng and Yukhei both turned to look at the direction of the noise and indeed, there was movement in the darkness.

Dejun. He was walking with small steps, making barely any noise as he was wearing fluffy socks. He stopped as he saw them, and Guanheng’s sight wasn’t perfect but to him, Dejun’s eyes looked a bit red.

Guanheng swallowed.

“Oh”, Dejun said, sounding surprised. “I thought you went out”

“Likewise”, Guanheng answered in Mandarin because that was the language that Dejun started with. They always talked in Mandarin - he knew that Dejun spoke Cantonese because he had heard him talking on the phone using said language and his Mandarin accent was obvious. And he knew that Dejun knew that he spoke it as well. Still, they were stuck on Mandarin for some reason. 

"Hi, Dejun!" Yukhei greeted him casually in Cantonese because he used it whenever he could. "How's it going?" 

"Uh, I'm alright", Dejun answered in Cantonese. It was just a language swap but something about it just sounded awkward. Dejun was so tense, even more so than normal, or then it just seemed like it because Yukhei was so relaxed. 

“What are you doing?” Yukhei asked and gestured towards their snacks. “We have Cola and crunched Pringles, you can hang out with us”

“I don’t know”, Dejun looked awkward as ever. “I don’t want to intrude”

“Nah, what are you saying, we invited you!” Guanheng rolled his eyes, but he meant good. “Come on!”

Dejun seemed to be battling with himself

“I have some more of those in my room”, he pointed at their snacks. “We could share?”

“Sweet!” Yukhei smiled as Dejun turned away. He slid on the floor with his fluffy socks, his enthusiasm was kind of cute.

...

Hanging out with Dejun together with Yukhei seemed to clean the air - which he hadn’t thought had been polluted in the first place but, the difference was significant. Dejun was a funny guy, once Yukhei managed to force him out of his shell, and his thinking was… interesting, different, Guanheng found him fascinating. It was no wonder that SM had taken a liking to him. He was an artistic soul.

After that night, Dejun talked more. Mainly to Guanheng apparently, but still. And once he started talking, he never shut up. He greeted Guanheng happily in the morning and never forgot to tell him goodnight, he asked him so many questions during training and gave his insights, it was refreshing. They ate together much more often, or rather, they ate apart from the others more often. Dejun’s taste in food was pretty much crazy, he ate anything, so he could accompany Guanheng whenever he wanted to eat at that ethnic restaurant around the corner that everyone else refused to enter. 

Dejun also started to speak Cantonese to him, rather than Mandarin. That was a big plus because again, it was Guanheng's mother tongue and he liked using it whenever he could. Also, it created a good shield between them and the other trainees. He liked using it just to annoy the others too (mainly Yangyang, since no one else cared)

It was going well. Dejun was making progress with his dancing and Guanheng’s rapping got better all the time. January was a blast for him.

And then… Something happened again.

“Yo Xiao, are you a mama’s boy or something”, Zhiqiang's laughter echoed in the dance practise room, as Guanheng could hear it all the way to the hallway. He had never particularly liked Zhiqiang, the guy was arrogant and vicious but he rapped like a madman so the teachers liked him. He wasn’t a regular school bully but he had a sharp tongue, and everyone who got on his way would feel his wrath and his spiky words. 

This time, they were targeted at Dejun. For some reason that Guanheng didn’t know.

“Why are you being a bully?” Dejun asked with a shaky voice and Guanheng looked down. _Oh here we go again,_ when Zhiqiang was in the mood for a fight then showing a sign of weakness was a bad idea. Guanheng generally tried to stay out of his way, when in turn Yangyang seemed like he enjoyed provoking him, answering with a tongue just as sharp. Their fights were always the worst, and in the dorms, they got physical too.

Yeah, fighting with Zhiqiang was not a good idea. Talking back to him wasn’t either. He had to be ignored.

“A bully?” Zhiqiang laughed. “You’re such a pussy Xiao, what do you mean a _bully_? Weaklings like you will always be bullied here, the world is cruel Xiao, what the fuck are you even doing here?”

Guanheng opened the door with a bit too much force, the others turned to look at him. All of them, even Dejun and Zhiqiang. Dejun’s eyes were red, Guanheng could see it all the way from the other end of the room. Their eyes locked for a single second, and Dejun took his backpack and ran.

Dejun ran past him, out of the door. Their shoulders collided painfully, but Guanheng doubted it had been intentional. He rubbed his shoulder and stared at Zhiqiang who was currently rolling his eyes and then turned back to stretching in front of the mirror. Guanheng heard Dejun’s heavy steps still in the hallway until a door was slammed shut.

The bathroom. 

Guanheng glanced at the clock. It was eight thirty in the morning. Today was the evaluation day of the month so everyone was on the edge. And everyone was in the main practice room early, their trainers wouldn’t arrive before nine o’clock.

“Yo, we have to bring him back, I still need to work on our harmony”, Mingli complained from where he was stretching in front of the mirror, not at all bothered. No one was. Zhiqiang bullying people was a regular occurrence. 

“I’ll go”, Guanheng said. He knew that the rumors would probably grow from this but he didn’t care. Dejun seemed very upset and he was the only one who had bothered to get to know him, even if just a little. The others would probably just yell at him a bit more and drag him out - Guanheng still had a small trace of empathy left in him, he wanted to help.

His and Dejun’s relationship was about to change a lot on that very day, but stepping out of the practice room and into the hallway, Guanheng didn’t know that yet. He just walked into the bathroom, expecting to find sulking, maybe teary-eyed and frustrated Dejun, but what he saw was something else.

Dejun had locked himself into a stall, that wasn’t a surprise. However, his sobs echoed from the tiles and filled the room with… with a feeling of suffocating. Guanheng’s heart dropped.

“Dejun?” he asked and walked to the stall that the other must have been in. “Dejun, are you okay? Zhiqiang was just being an asshole, he is like that to everyone, try not to take it to the heart”

The sobbing got even louder and Guanheng felt bad. Worse. He knocked on the door.

“Dejun? What’s going on?” He was obviously having a breakdown, _that_ was going on! But Guanheng didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m never coming back!” Dejun screamed. Guanheng had heard him belt out some neat high notes but other than that, he had never heard him being so loud. “Leave me alone!”

Some twisted part inside him whispered to him, that this should make him happy. Not someone’s pain, but rather, the fact that he said he was quitting. Every time that it had happened before, the evil side in him had been glad. Even when he had lost friends, when his young heart had gotten attached to people, every player out of the game pushed him closer to debut. He should feel something, but-

Not this.

“Let me in”, he said, trying to sound calm and unthreatening. 

“No!”

“Dejun, please”

“No! I’m quitting! Leave me the fuck alone!” Dejun rarely cursed in Mandarin, but he _never_ did that in Cantonese, which they were using now. Guanheng’s heart dropped but he also felt a bit… Angry now. He hit the door harder.

“Let me in! Don’t fucking scream at me through the door when I’m trying to help you!”

He had raised his voice. Guanheng hated raising his voice, he hated how he sounded when he did it, his sisters had always told him that it didn’t fit him and that it made him sound like something he wasn’t. 

But he had done it. It echoed in the walls and tiles on the floor. And Dejun unlocked the door.

Guanheng shook his head and opened the door. Dejun was kneeling on the ground, looking down so that his messy, too-long hair was covering his face. But he was still crying.

“No”, Guanheng said much more softly and kneeled next to him. “You are not quitting. You will get up and perform like it was your last chance. Dejun, get yourself together!”

He took the other's arm and pulled. He had seen what Dejun could do, he knew that the other deserved this, more than anyone else in there. Most of the people there were lucky ones like him, like Yangyang, people who had ended up there by accident. 

But Dejun wasn't like them. He had always wanted to be a singer and nothing else. He wrote lyrics and although sometimes his thinking was infuriatingly full of metaphors and it was complicated as hell, Guanheng still liked him. Dejun would be an amazing artist, he needed to make it. 

Dejun shook his head, he sounded like he couldn’t breathe. He was crying so much. It was as though he had been hurt by something so much more than just Zhiqiang’s usual sharp words. He looked _broken._

And he couldn’t gather the pieces.

"Okay”, Guanheng said, to gather his own thoughts. Then, he squeezed Dejun’s hands to the point of hurting him. "Cry it out now, then. Let it out now, I'll listen, I'll hold you. We have fifteen minutes, Dejun, tell me what's wrong so I can help you" 

And the other couldn't do anything but cry. He tried to say something at first but he was sobbing so hard that he couldn't get a coherent word out. Guanheng hugged him and listened as he sobbed. 

He kept looking at his watch, the time kept clicking relentlessly, tick-tock, not caring about them. Five minutes, ten minutes, Guanheng knew that Dejun would have to pull himself together and they would have to leave within the next three minutes or they would be late. They still had some work to do before the evaluators came. 

Guanheng had seen trainees be fired on the spot for being late. 

Guanheng could leave. He was ready, alright. But Dejun cried and cried, his every breath poured ice on Guanheng’s heart. He couldn't leave him, there was no way. 

No way.

He whispered encouraging words and rubbed his back and hoped to _God_ that they would get there in time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baccc (My other stories became a bit heavy for me to write so, I chose to continue this instead :D)
> 
> AND WAYV IS JOINING NCT2020 I'M SO HAPPY I'M GONNA CRY AGHHHHHHHH

They did.

Dejun’s tears dried and he managed to stand up, and with no words exchanged, they made their way to the practice room where their evaluators had arrived already. They didn’t really have time to warm up but they performed alright - Dejun only had one voice crack but he belted his high notes with such force and aggression, Guanheng saw how impressed the evaluators were. 

They made it, both of them, and so did Yangyang, Zhiqiang, Fa, and Aoyun. There were six of them left. 

After the session, Dejun came to talk to Guanheng.

“Hey”, he said, standing there awkwardly as Guanheng gathered his stuff from the corner where he had thrown them in his hurry. Of course, his bag had been forgotten open and his papers had spread everywhere. They were just his lyrics and practice notes for this particular session so most of them were useless now. Still, he wanted to save them. 

“Mmh?” he lifted a paper that had obviously been stepped on. It only had two lines of text in it, he wouldn’t mind throwing it away. Maybe he should buy a notebook, instead of just A4 papers that were always lost and in the wrong order. Old habits died hard.

“I wanted to say sorry”, Dejun said quietly. “And thank you. You wouldn’t have had to do that”

“Well, technically I had to since we had a unit performance together”

“Oh”

“But seriously, Dejun, of course, I’m concerned if one of my trainee buddies is upset”, he piled the remaining papers and stuffed them into his backpack while he stood up. He felt weird talking to people while kneeling on the floor, and talking about this was… strange, as it was. But he tried to brush it off as though it was nothing - because to him, it kind of was. “We are teammates. Yes, we are enemies too, but we are also teammates who should take care of each other. Everyone breaks down once in a while, it’s only natural. Don’t sweat it.”

“Okay”, Dejun relaxed a little and Guanheng felt better too. They had been training together for four months and only now did he see the other  _ actually _ relax, and let go - and he saw the sadness linger in his eyes. He was always so tense and unsure, trying so hard to hide that part, the melancholy. Guanheng had never seen anyone break down like that but, he didn’t need to tell Dejun that. Hopefully, it would never happen again.

“It’s just”, the older continued. “People usually just… they get mad and weirded out and… and they’re mean, and I’m not good at dealing with that when I’m… yeah. Thanks for not being like that”

Oh, so it had indeed happened before. Well, Guanheng was somewhat happy that Dejun told him - now he knew what to expect.

“Well, then those people you’ve met before are assholes and you should wipe them from your mind”, Guanheng concluded. “I won’t leave you behind like that. And it’s a promise”

And that… became the one and only truth for his remaining training period.

It was weird, how one breakdown could change his views so much. He had comforted other trainees before, he had seen them cry, but this was different. Maybe he felt a bit bad for talking shit about Dejun to Yukhei, maybe, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Dejun was sensitive, one would say that he wasn’t made for the entertainment world. But Guanheng didn’t want that to be the truth. And it didn’t have to be.

And onto another month as trainees, they went. SM cut one boy, Aoyun, only a week after that. It was done in silence, one day he was just gone. That happened now and then and Guanheng always got the chills when it did.

And then there were only five of them left.

As the number of people in the dorms lessened, for some reason, the tension kept rising.

Because they were getting so close. So,  _ so close  _ to the ultimate goal - getting put into the debut team.

The end was getting nearer and nearer. And Guanheng could feel it in his stomach, in his dreams, in his impatient legs that could now somehow take two hours more dance practice than normally. 

The middle trainee group watched Yukhei’s debut on TV on the 22nd of February. They always watched NCT stages on TV, because as time went on, the NCT members became closer and closer to them. They visited them often, especially Kun and Ten who had fewer unit activities than the others. But the others came to say hi too, every now and then - since there were so many members in NCT, even if each member only visited them once every two weeks, it meant that every day at least one of them peeked into their practice room.

Anyways, they gathered in front of the TV in their practice room. It was only six pm so they were in the middle of their practice session, but they wanted to collectively take a break just to see their friends debut. It was the first stage for Yukhei and Jungwoo, and although Guanheng wasn’t very close with Jungwoo, he was excited for both of them. He had trained with him for a while too.

He, Yangyang, and Fa sat in front of the TV while Zhiqiang kept stretching at the back. Dejun was in the vocal room, practicing his high notes. Sometimes, Guanheng felt like he could hear him through the walls, his high voice, but that obviously wasn’t possible. The rooms were soundproof and for a good reason.

He kept hearing him everywhere. He woke up from his sleep, thinking he heard him cry again. Whenever the other was late for practice (which wasn’t often, but it happened) a bad feeling fell into his stomach. It was… weird. But he worried about him and couldn’t help feeling that way.

“Stop jumping Zhi-ge, they’re on!” Fa complained and the oldest Chinese finally stopped his routine but didn’t step any closer to watch with them. He had grown even more hostile as time went on, Guanheng wondered if he even knew how to smile anymore.

The names and pictures appeared on the screen. It was wild to see Yukhei there with their seniors. And he wasn’t even Yukhei anymore - he was Lucas. Lucas of NCT U. They were all quiet as the performance started, and only cheered when Yukhei - Lucas - appeared on the screen.

“Ohhhh _ Nan jeoldaejeogin neoye boseu nega wonhae ohhhh”,  _ Yangyang rapped Yukhei’s part after the performance had ended. “Guys, did you  _ see _ the look he shot at the camera! He totally planned that!”

“That was so cool”, Fa couldn’t contain his excitement and stood up with Yangyang. “Xuxi _ went there _ ”

Guanheng smiled and watched as the two youngest tried the dance moves in front of the mirror and shared their excitement. He was happy too - Yukhei had done well. Of course, the older members had outshined them but this was just the beginning. Guanheng would have to text Yukhei as soon as he got back to the dorms - he had killed it, and Guanheng wanted to hear  _ everything _ about his backstage time.

“What did you think, Zhi-ge?” Fa asked from the grumpy trainee standing in the corner, who looked like someone had just force-fed him lemon juice. Fa was too nice, he believed in the best in people and he was still trying to befriend Zhiqiang and include him. He was fighting a losing battle with an awkward smile on his face.

Guanheng watched as Zhiqiang glared at the youngest. But instead of snapping and ruining the atmosphere fully like Guanheng had feared, he snorted.

“Jungwoo debuted with his personality and Xuxi with his face”, he said bluntly and turned to face the mirror again. “They’re bound to want someone with real talent soon”

…

Guanheng couldn’t say he despised Zhiqiang. Even if the boy was awful, he knew why that was. He had heard many times when his mother had screamed at him through the phone, and he knew that going back home empty-handed simply just wasn’t an option. Zhiqiang was a 97 liner, he had trained in SM ever since he had been 17. If he was kicked out, what was he supposed to do? Go back to high school, at age 21?

Guanheng felt the pressure too. His older sisters had succeeded already, they had spouses and careers and paths for their lives. And he?

Well,  _ hopefully, _ a career, yeah. He could still be kicked out and then he would have to start building his life all over again. Even in the best-case scenario, if he debuted, it didn’t guarantee him a life in the game like being a lawyer or a doctor would. No, he would possibly get a seven-year contract at best, and that was usually how long kpop groups lasted anyway. 

SM groups lasted especially long in the game, but still. He was nearing his twenties and he was okay but… what about when he hit his 30s? Or 40s? The career of an entertainer, especially a foreign entertainer, would not last for very long. He would have to figure out his place, build himself a character.

If he even made it to debut.

“Um, Guanheng”, he heard Dejun’s voice from the door. That wasn’t unusual. He turned from in front of his mirror - where he had been trying to squeeze a particularly stubborn blackhead - to Dejun, who was standing in the doorway like he was invading his privacy somehow, although it was their shared room. Guanheng would be thankful if the other guys cared half as much when walking in. He had been walked in on while jacking off and been shown less respect.

A man needed his alone time. Other boys his age should know that but _ nooooo _ of course not.

Yangyang was the worst. The absolute worst. 

“Yeah?” He asked. He looked back at the mirror - oh shoot, now the place looked even worse than before. He should save these to his dermatologists. It just felt so satisfying, maybe he had a problem with squeezing his face. 

Well, at least he wasn’t addicted to anything like Yangyang, the guy had a serious problem with-

“I- I heard something”, Dejun walked in, looking serious. He was often serious, but the warning bells started ringing in his ears. 

“Uh oh”, he said, bracing himself for the worst. “What is it?” 

Dejun sat on the bed next to him and Guanheng turned the table mirror in the other direction. He didn’t want to look at himself anymore.

“The guys were spreading rumors about you”, Dejun said carefully and leaned closer to him, to whisper. “They say that you are… a  _ homosexual _ ”

Guanheng didn’t know what it was. Maybe the way that he said it, so seriously. Maybe because his breathing tickled his skin and made the whole thing seem so much more… ah, close? Intimate? Anyway, Guanheng’s heart jumped to his throat and he gulped.

“Oh, they do?” as though it was a serious thing, as though it was happening for the first time. Another herd of trainees, young and innocent trainees had just entered - of course, the older ones would make sure that they caught on the common rumors. How Dejun had heard of it, however… did he know the rumors that people were spreading of him?

Guanheng wasn’t going to tell them to him, but he wondered. He would be way more upset if he knew, right?

Dejun leaned back and nodded seriously.

“Well”, what was he even supposed to say to that? “That happens”

That happens?  _ THAT HAPPENS???!!?!? _ What the hell Guanheng???? 

Dejun looked a bit confused, but he tried to hide it. As though he could hide his emotions from Guanheng - Guanheng wasn’t generally good at reading people, but Dejun was an open book. An open children’s book with huge, colorful pictures and very little text.

“Why do they say that?” Dejun asked. Guanheng just looked down and shrugged.

“That’s a bad accusation here”, Guanheng answered truthfully. “They try to pull us down by saying that. No one wants a gay idol, that’s just how it is”

Dejun looked down too. He swallowed and looked somewhat uneasy. Wait, why would he? It wasn’t like he… was one, right? Not like it would matter to Guanheng, not at all, but it would be bad for  _ him _ . No one would ever accept him if he was. Or, Guanheng would, but not, like, society, and when had he ever rambled in his own head  _ Guanheng what the hell?? _

“That’s cruel”, Dejun said quietly. “It’s not like people can change that”

“Yeah, well”, Guanheng shrugged again. “I’m not one, so, you don’t have to be… afraid or worried or something”

“I wouldn’t be”, Dejun answered right away. “I just don’t like how they… you know, use it against you. Even if you’re not one. I told them that, but I don’t know if it helped. I just thought that it would be good for you to know”

Guanheng eyed him for a while. He seemed serious, truthful. Dejun might have just blown more wind into the already high flames but he had tried to help - that was the important thing here. The important thing for Guanheng.

“You know”, he started. “People are rarely as thoughtful as you”

“Pfft, this is just common human decency”, Dejun rolled his eyes. “This place is like a fucking jungle. They’re jealous because you’re awesome”

Oof, there’s the cursing again.

Guanheng couldn’t decide whether it fit Dejun or not.

Well, that wasn’t his to decide anyway.

“Thanks”, he muttered and tried to contain his smile. It wasn’t often that people called him awesome and meant it.

...

“Okay, and right from the start. One two three four five six seven - Dejun, you’re one count late! Again! One two three-”

Guanheng looked at Dejun through the mirror. The step sequence wasn’t easy, he admitted it, but he had learned it years ago so this was just a recap lesson for him. And for everyone else in the room. Except for Dejun.

“The hands, the HANDS Dejun! Focus! One two-”

He was struggling. He was an okay dancer but this choreo was not for average dancers - it was for upcoming SM idols. Idol dancers.

At one point the dance teacher gave up on him, and Dejun moved further back embarrassed. Guanheng could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, as he focused and tried to learn, in an hour, something that the others had spent a week on back in the day. Zhiqiang and Yangyang got praise for their skills, as usual. Guanheng didn’t, but he rarely did - the place where his praises exceeded the others was at the plastic surgeon.

Oh, he was used to that.

Dejun was not used to getting so much negative critique. Or, how would he know, maybe he was - he had been in a musical and a talent show on TV, obviously he should have. But not here, not in the SM practice rooms, from a Korean teacher. Had he even understood everything?

When the teacher was long gone and the others were done, Dejun still didn’t stop dancing in front of the mirror. His steps were heavy, as he hit the floor harder each time. Guanheng watched him while he slowly gathered his stuff. Dejun was repeating the same mistakes, was he not seeing it?

“You coming?” Yangyang asked. He and Fa were going to go for udon and had asked Guanheng to join. He was hungry… but Dejun was never going to learn the dance like that.

“Some other time”, he said and dropped his bag back down. “I’ll help him”

There was something in Yangyang’s eyes that he couldn’t quite read. Was it… was it a knowing look? But he wasn’t smirking like he often was. He narrowed his eyes for a split second and then said.

“Sure”

Once the others had left, Dejun turned around as well.

“What are you still doing here?” He asked, out of breath. “You danced it perfectly”

“That’s the reason why I’m here”, oh, he had seen. Nice, that made Guanheng feel quite good. “I’ll help you”

“You don’t have to do that”, Dejun muttered and looked at the mirror. As Guanheng walked next to him, their height difference - seven centimeters - seemed bigger than ever. Maybe because Dejun’s shoulders were slumped from discouragement. He was frustrated, that was a familiar feeling for Guanheng.

Very, very familiar.

“Let me show you”, he said, trying to sound genuine and friendly, unlike their overly enthusiastic and sometimes very cold dance teacher. “You keep messing the counts. In this part, you need to follow the melody on top, rather than the baseline. Look at me”

Guanheng turned the music on with the remote and tossed it aside. The heavy bass from downstairs kept annoying him but he blocked it out - it was NCT, going through the Black on Black choreo again. It was where he wanted to be too, but he wasn’t yet. He wasn’t even a rookie yet.

But he would become one. And Dejun would too.

He hit the steps with little difficulty. Even though Dejun’s eyes were drilled on him, he tried not to let it faze him.

Ohh why would it faze him, it was just one of his trainee buddies. Shit, he missed the timing for the second chorus - anyway, he did the right steps. Dejun watched him with such intensity - oh, his trainers always watched him intensely, but it didn’t feel like that. 

It didn’t feel like this. It never felt like this.

Shit.

“Okay, do you think you get it now?” he took off his cap, ruffled his hair, and put it back on. Why was he sweating so much? Ugh.

“Maybe”, Dejun answered and scratched his cheek unconsciously. “I get it when I see it, but I feel like my body doesn’t listen when I try to actually do it.”

“Let me help you”

… how exactly was he going to do that?

“It’s all about switching between body locks and contemporary dance. Ten ge is good at that”

“Oh, yeah, he is really good”, Dejun's eyes looked dreamy. Oh, he liked Ten, alright. There was nothing wrong with liking Ten who was amazing but... Guanheng knew some things too!

Guanheng placed his hands on Dejun’s hips. Without thinking. Their eyes looked in the mirror, and he couldn’t read Dejun’s expression at all now. He just looked… frozen. Shit, did he not like to be touched? Oh shit, what was he supposed to do? Was he invading his personal space? Oh no, no, he didn’t want to be that guy no.

“Um”, he said and let go. “Focus on your hips here. For this, you need to move them carefully, but with a purpose. Like in Move, remember? You practiced it too, didn’t you?”

Dejun nodded and moved his hips as well, to get the feeling. They rarely practiced anything sensual, it was more like crazy difficult and fast steps and power, the things SM was known for.

Guanheng was bad at the contemporary and graceful dance. Dejun… he was alright, once he got rid of the initial awkwardness and tension in his body.

“Now, do the sequence for me”, he said and stepped in front of the mirror. He couldn’t say for sure, but it almost looked like Dejun blushed. A little.

“What?” he asked. 

“Oh don’t be embarrassed”, Guanheng sat down, his legs crossed. “If we make it together, you’re going to have to do this a lot. We watch each other, give each other feedback, and so on. Like, a lot. So, you better practice that with me”

He must have done it before, danced, and been given feedback individually, but probably never in this setting. Performing… could be awkward, if one had to be a strong stage character in a small, dimly lit room, only for one person. Guanheng had a hard time imagining, for example, Taeyong being able to be this madman dancer just in front of his small group. But he had to be, to improve and in order for the others to see what he would do and what they would have to do in return, to balance the performance.

This was going to be a unit performance too. Dejun smiled awkwardly and bit his lip while he stood in front of the mirror in place, waiting for the chorus to come. And Guanheng could stare, with no shame. Dejun still had some awkwardness in his moves but he was getting there. He wasn’t nearly as hopeless as he had been a few months ago.

Debuting together… didn’t feel impossible anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Remember me? Sorry for taking so damn long, seriously, I just didn't know what to do with this. We got so much more info from nct2020, about their relationships and trainee life and all, and although this is just fiction, I wanted this to stay as canon-compliant as possible, and agh idk I just felt a bit frustrated I guess. But I'm back now! I got my Got Ya!/Found Ya! series done so now I can focus on other things as well, yayy! Let's go!

_Every now and then, more often than I’d like to admit, I wish I could be gone. I wish that I could turn into sea foam or mist or something, observe the world but not necessarily take part in it._

_Because I tend to make mistakes in it. I tend to feel regret, shame, and anger and I feel so heavy, I wish I could just fly away. To put it simply, I feel like someone tied the shoelaces of both of my shoes together, and whenever I try to take a proper step, I fall. I keep on falling, and getting up is exhausting. So, I… I don’t… I kind of want to lay on the ground and stay there._

_Until I’m ready. Until I’m fast enough, strong enough. Until I have enough energy. But the world won’t stop, it won’t wait for someone like me._

_…_

  
  


Time was a funny thing. Guanheng had always thought that it was weird, how it flowed like a river onwards but how it wasn’t just moving predictably like the water in it - It was also like the fish that jumped in it sometimes, it was like the pieces of driftwood that sometimes seemed to get stuck in it but never truly stopped. Like everything that looked a bit different along its way, the hays and the flowers, how everything had to eventually just follow the stream because they were too weak to stand against it.

Guanheng’s time kept jumping, and still, he seemed to be running in place. Or… fuck, why was Dejun so good at metaphors and he wasn’t? Right, Dejun had spent time reading when he had been little. He had listened to music and watched movies that actually made him think. Not that anyone needed any brain capacity to enjoy something like Twilight, but it was still more than the brainless dubstep that Guanheng had filled his head with. 

Guanheng couldn’t play any instruments, he had never even _cared_ about instruments. And he still kinda didn’t. He wasn’t interested in necessarily creating anything. Of course, as a performer, he had to know how to be reborn, but he had no interest in being an artist.

Anyway, the waters of time kept flowing onwards, with speed, velocity, which kept increasing more and more and more.

On one fine Monday afternoon in the SM canteen, the flow of time seemed to stop, though. It was so sudden, as though a car going 120km/h on a highway just suddenly… didn’t. It didn’t crash, it just… It just stopped.

Yangyang sat down at the table, opposite of him. Guanheng’s noodles had turned soggy a long time ago, but he just hadn’t been able to throw them away. All food was precious. But, all time spent fasting was even more precious, according to the SM logic. Yangyang sat down heavily, as though he weighed 100 kilos. Guanheng surely felt like they both did, that was how their doctors always presented their weight to them.

This was something different though.

“You okay?” He asked the younger. Yangyang was rarely out of energy but at that moment, he looked exhausted. 

“I talked with Sungchan”, the younger said. That didn’t explain much - Yangyang often practiced with Sungchan. So, Guanheng waited until he continued. “Apparently, SM is creating another middle group”

Guanheng furrowed his brows. Already? But they weren’t even done with theirs yet! Why would they-

Oh. That was when 120 became 0 and Guanheng was left to catch his breath.

“Are they giving up on us?” Guanheng asked as ice surrounded his heart. He had thought that they were getting so close - were they not good enough after all? 

Yangyang just shrugged sadly.

“I don’t know”, he said. “But they might be. Teacher Lee has complained that we haven’t been making progress the way he wants us to. Maybe they’ll just cut us all and try with the Koreans”

“But they said that NCT China is coming! We’re the only Chinese trainees that they have!”

“As if that were a problem”, Yangyang sighed. “Super Junior-M and EXO-M both had Koreans in them, remember? They’ve done it before and they can do it again”

During his whole time as a trainee, Guanheng had always been taught to think of the Korean trainees as automatically superior to himself. Foreign idols couldn’t be leaders, they couldn’t be the first soloists and they couldn’t be the first actors or MCs or basically anything, at least not in Korea. The Koreans were always the priority, and the others could follow only if they were _extraordinary._

Guanheng understood it, and he couldn’t be too salty about it. He had come to a foreign country to seek fame, of course, he was going to be a second option. Third option. Last option. Like, he got it, he could have become an idol in China where he would have been first priority, but he had made this decision. 

However, since most of the trainees were indeed Korean, he had a small advantage too, if one could put it that way - he had his Chinese skills, and most of all, the Chinese fan base would automatically focus on him the most if he joined a Korean group. And China was, needless to say, huge. He brought something to the table that he hadn’t earned but would definitely use for his advantage.

When had business ever been fair?

He should have seen it coming. Or, he shouldn’t have been too lulled into thinking that just because their group was getting smaller, he was getting closer. Oh no, no no no no. He had heard all about EXOs forming process, about how 500 had become 250, then 100 then 96 then 48 then 24 then 12 and ohhh then one third of the remaining lineup was exchanged into newcomers who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Guanheng wasn’t downgrading the skills of any of the EXO members, definitely not Baekhyun or Chen who had joined late and become really powerful vocalists, but… They kept reminding him of how little his training time could be worth. SM could just street scout someone perfect and train him in weeks to match Guanheng’s skill level. And It would be _bye bye Guanheng good luck catching up with society now!_

No. No, he was NOT going to let his training go in vain.

He stood up and the chair screaked against the floor.

“Take that with you”, he pointed at Yangyang’s protein bar - the younger’s diet didn’t exactly give him many options for lunch. “We’re going to practice”

“The rooms are full, NCT is in unit practice and Red Velvet and SNSD both have a comeback coming up”, Yangyang sighed and tore the plastic wrapper open. He looked so discouraged, the dark, cold despair started forming around Guanheng’s heart and feeding on his life force. But he was going to freaking kill it and chop it to pieces.

“Then we’ll just practice in the hallway or something”, Guanheng grabbed his arm. “Come on, you didn’t come all the way from Europe to give up now!”

Yangyang stared at his bar for a second. Then, a fire was lit behind his eyes again - the fire so damn familiar to Guanheng, he knew what it meant. 

“Yeah. Fuck the Koreans”, Yangyang said and bit his protein bar as though he was a wild human ripping a piece of muscle off his prey with his bare teeth. “We’re going to fucking crush them”

“Yes, we are!” Guanheng pulled him behind himself. “ _Fuck Koreans!"_

Thank god no one present in the canteen at the time could understand Chinese.

...

It was difficult. So, so difficult, to decide where his head and heart should be. Because… as they practiced, he corrected every single one of Yangyang’s faults. Because he wanted him to succeed.

Guanheng woke Dejun up in the morning to drag him to the dance studio with him before his vocal lessons (or, he didn’t really drag, Dejun wanted to come) because he wanted Dejun to succeed.

He helped Fa with his Korean homework so that the younger had more time to practice. Because he wanted Fa to succeed.

He was even more polite towards Zhiqiang. Because even if it was only Zhiqiang who succeeded, it meant that one of them had.

It was a matter of their team now, they had to be better than whoever Koreans the company wanted to replace them with. They all pushed each other even harder, five hours of sleep turned into three and Guanheng lost five kilograms in a matter of two weeks. Yeah, he trained as though his life depended on it, he danced and rapped better than ever before.

He only got praise for his weight loss. But well, it was better than nothing.

Although they seemed to be working as a team now, it didn’t mean that they were friends.

Or, that anyone was exactly friends with Zhiqiang.

“Watch where you’re going, you idiot”, Zhiqiang snapped at Fa again. He kept losing his temper over the smallest of things, but to be fair, everyone did. Only, today, he seemed to have taken Fa as his target, beside Dejun. It was so pathetic of him, letting his anger out on the people who were less likely to defend themselves.

“Sorry, ge”

“Don’t _ge_ me, get the steps right”, he sighed. “Jun, put the music back on”

“Don’t _Jun_ me”, Dejun muttered as he walked to the stereos. Guanheng glanced towards Zhiqiang, to see if he had heard, and then closed his eyes. Zhiqiang no longer had his flock of hyenas supporting his evil tendencies, but that didn’t make him any less vicious.

“Don’t disrespect me like that Dejun”, he spat out. “Learn your fucking moves”

“Learn to fucking behave”, no, Dejun, no, Guanheng rubbed his face. Dejun attacked easily but he was more like a chihuahua with his anger, when Zhiqiang was a big attack dog. Dejun might bite first but he would die if he made Zhiqiang angry. Because Dejun was very weak from the inside. He was… Guanheng couldn’t help but feel that way. Dejun still seemed like he had a rookie heart.

“What did you say?” Zhiqiang retorted. “You have no right-”

“Can you two shut the fuck up?” Yangyang joined the fight. “We don’t have time for stuff like this”

“No, we don’t”, Zhiqiang pointed at Fa and Dejun. “Get yourselves together or give up, you’re NOT going to ruin this performance”

They all kept cursing so much that it lost all of its power. It was just whatever now - they were tired, they kept shouting out sharp words that turned blunt fast. 

Dejun looked like he wanted to add something but Guanheng spoke first.

 _“Don’t provoke him, please”_ , he said in Cantonese and hoped that _that_ itself didn’t provoke anyone - when everyone was tense, they got annoyed when people spoke in tongues that they didn’t understand. But now, he needed that small cover. _“It’s not worth it, you know that it isn’t”_

“Okay”, Dejun said from between his teeth and bit down his anger. “Okay”

…

Dejun became colder. He talked less, smiled less, ate less, overall he just started to feel like he was less of _everything_. Guanheng noticed, of course, he did, but he was too tired to do anything about it.

Guanheng patted his back when he walked past him but other than that, he did nothing. Why should he? Of course, he cared about him and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, but tiredness and selfishness had eaten his heart.

Dejun could be a burden. A heavy load on his already tired back. So, he didn’t work to make the other open up - he tried to be nice to him but he didn’t want to open the locker in his heart. Because that was just filled with monsters that no one knew how to defeat.

Guanheng knew that Dejun could get depressed. But for as long as the other stayed on his feet and moved, Guanheng didn’t think he had to do anything about it.

He wasn’t anyone’s babysitter. He had his own life on the line too.

His own dancing to worry about when they were given more and more difficult tasks. 

Guanheng slept less and ate less and less, while he kept dancing until he couldn’t get up anymore. A permanent headache nested in his head, no amount of painkillers worked on it. He got annoyed by everything and he kept fighting with Yangyang over the smallest of things.

Everyone was on edge. 

“For fuck’s sake!” of course, it was Zhiqiang who yelled. Even though he was the one who had fallen on the floor - well, exactly _because_ he was the one falling on the floor. “Stop messing up!”

“I told you I’m sorry”, Dejun yelled back, from the floor next to him. “You could slow down a bit so that you don’t get tangled in my feet!”

“The choreo doesn’t work that way!”

Their trainer had given them this move, this breakdance-like move (Guanheng knew nothing about dance theory, or any kind of theory really) where Zhiqiang and Dejun had to work together. Zhiqiang was their best dancer when Dejun was their worst, it was a difficult move and often ended up failing. And that was a no-no considering that their evaluation was getting closer and closer and they still weren’t getting it right.

“Well I’m sorry that I’m not a fucking professional, don’t rely on me!”

“I would never rely on a piece of shit like you. If I fall because of you at the evaluation then I’m going to kill you!”

“Oh be my guest”

It was eight pm. Not late by any means but Guanheng had been in the practice room since seven am in the morning. He was sweaty and tired and the headache was eating him alive.

And so were the others around him.

Zhiqiang grabbed Dejun’s collar and that was the moment when Guanheng’s patience ended entirely.

“Each of you, just shut up!” he yelled. “Drop it, just try again”

“Oh, stay out of this Huang”, Zhiqiang spat out his name like it was poisonous to him. “It’s none of your business”

“Oh, it isn’t?” He raised his voice more. “Then EXCUSE ME while I LEAVE. Practice this shit on your own, I’m sick and tired of watching you argue like children!”

“We still have to go through the formation changes”, Fa said quietly but paled once Guanheng glanced at him. 

“I’m done”, he continued and went to grab his stuff. 

“If you’re so done then why don’t you cut your contract right away?”

Zhiqiang just didn’t know when to stop.

“Oh I don’t need to do that”, he threw his backpack on his back and spat his words out like they were poison. “With you acting like this, we’ll all find our asses from China before summer”

“Ohhh Huang, aren't you the prophet here now, once again”

Guanheng just flipped his finger at the older before slamming the door shut.

...

Smoking might not have been the best possible solution. It was one of the worst ones actually. If he got caught smoking then he would get an earful from the staff, not to even mention what it would do to his reputation. But he was done, he was so done, he felt like his headache and rage would cut him in half so he decided to drown himself in smoke.

It was hypocritical from the side of the company, really, to criticize this habit of theirs. Most idols under the label smoked to reduce the stress - why should the trainees be any different? Cigarettes to idols were like coffee to college students. Like, not everyone used them regularly but people who never did were rare.

Yukhei had shown this particular place to Guanheng after his debut. This safe place behind the company building and parking hall. That was where he usually came so, Guanheng came here too. There were no fans around, just buildings sheltering him from sight. Judging by the multiple ashtrays left there, he could tell that many liked that particular spot.

Guanheng blew the smoke out between his teeth and watched as it dissolved into the gray air. He was feeling calmer, but he couldn’t tell whether it was because of the smoke or just because he got some alone time. He felt embarrassed, for screaming and leaving - they should really be practicing together now.

But in his heart, he felt like he was starting to give up.

He missed his home more than ever. Was being an idol really what he wanted? Five more years of this, ten more years of this? It would end soon anyway. He could have spent more time with his parents, go to school and join clubs like a normal person, have friends and maybe even a girlfriend. There were so many things he was missing out on, and for what?

So that he could spend 12 hours a day practicing? And maybe have his few minutes in spotlights, have people scream his name and stroke his ego, have them pay crazy amounts of money just to talk to him for a few minutes - or, just to hear him say the few practiced lines that he repeated to every single fan he met since he would never know any of his fans and never remember them either.

Was he really that insecure, was he so deprived of attention that he was ready to throw his life away for it?

He had seen how his sunbaenims often comforted each other in the hallways, how they reminded each other of why they were there in the first place.

Why was Guanheng there? Why had he started it all?

 _For the lolz_. That was what he jokingly told the new trainees when they asked.

The reality wasn’t far from it.

It was so close, Guanheng felt bad.

“Um, Guanheng?” he heard a very familiar voice, a very familiar tone, coming from the door leading to where he was. He turned around and hid his cigarette at first but realized soon that it was useless. The smoke gave him away, and he didn’t want to throw away such a precious item - cigarettes were pricey and he didn’t have much money.

“What?” He sounded a bit harsher than he had intended to. He had thought he had calmed down but still, the moment he was addressed, he felt irritated again. 

“Can you… Can you help me with the move I have to do with Zhiqiang? I can’t get it right and he left, I don’t want to ruin the performance.”

Guanheng took a deep drag. There was no point in hiding his addiction from Dejun, he would find out at some point anyway. And he felt extremely annoyed by the fact that the older Chinese had left - how the fuck was Dejun going to learn if no one helped him? 

“You should do it with Zhiqiang”, he said and spat to the ground. He didn’t even look at Dejun to see his reaction, he just focused on his smoke. “I can’t teach you how to cooperate with him, I’m not him”

“I know”, Dejun sounded embarrassed, Guanheng looked up to see him leaning against the doorframe, looking uneasy. “I’m just getting desperate, I don’t know what to do”

Dejun wasn’t mad at him for screaming and leaving. He wasn’t disgusted by his smoking. He was asking for help, just like he would any other time. It was alright.

Guanheng took one last drag and threw the cigarette away, among the others on the ground.

“Alright”, he said. “Let’s go”

…

They still screwed up at the evaluation.

Not too badly, neither of them slammed to the ground like they had at practice, but they were a beat late to the next move, both of them. Their tiredness was visible in all of their performances, they sweated more and were more desperate. When Guanheng was done with the final dance piece, he felt like he could pass out. Sweat kept dripping to his eyes but he didn’t drop his ending pose until he was given permission.

Their evaluators’ expressions were stone hard. They thanked them coldly and asked them to leave while they talked. So, Guanheng and the others stood in the hallway for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. They didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t move much, they just waited.

The longer it took, the less hope Guanheng had. Maybe they were not good enough after all. Maybe they deserved to be cut.

Once they were called back in, Guanheng had planned his upcoming week entirely. First, he would call his mom, then he would get his stuff from the dorm and fly back home, tonight. No matter the cost, he could pay it back to his parents later. He was sick and tired of Korea, he was sick and tired of the practice rooms and the language and the people there, he didn’t want to stand in front of the blinding lights, he wanted to sleep for 8 hours a night and meet his parents again.

He was tired. He missed home. He missed his life.

Their dance teacher looked disappointed, as he kept staring at the tablet in his hand. He rubbed his face, sighed, and the trainees stood in line, waiting for the results. Zhiqiang to his left, Dejun to his right, Guanheng turned to look at his worn sneakers as the teacher started to speak.

“As you all may know, we have been planning to debut NCT China in 2019”, he said. Of course, they knew. “And we believed some of you would be in the lineup”

 _Believed._ Past tense. 

Guanheng wasn’t even surprised. 

“If I can be honest with you - none of you are good enough to debut”

Ouch. Guanheng would be hurt if he hadn’t believed in it himself so strongly already. They were not good enough. 

“Fa”, he started. “You do not meet SM standards, and you’re not improving quickly enough. You won’t be ready, so, we are going to terminate your contract” 

Guanheng felt a small sting in his heart. Of course. He started from the youngest, kicking them all out one by one. Fa bowed 90 degrees, possibly even lower, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. 

“Yes, sir.”

The dance teacher smiled sadly. Fa had won over all of their sympathy, of course, he felt bad for the youngest.

“SM is the best of the best so, you should be thankful for this opportunity. Try your wings somewhere else, I’m sure you can find a place. You are a gifted dancer, use that talent”

Fa bowed again.

“Thank you, sir”

That was nice and all but Guanheng really wanted to get it all done and over with. Just cut them all, clean and quick, that would be so much better.

“Zhiqiang”, the teacher turned towards the guy standing next to Guanheng, who straightened upon hearing his name. Guanheng could feel his anxiousness and he hated it. He had enough of his own.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m sorry, Zhiqiang, but you lack too much and you’re too old. You're not a team player, we can't debut you. This isn’t working out, I’m left with no choice but to cut you from the line-up.”

And just like that, Zhiqiang was out too. 

Guanheng closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They were all out. It was obvious. He shouldn’t be surprised anymore.

“See me in the morning, we’ll discuss the termination of your training contract then”, the trainer continued talking to Zhiqiang who had turned completely white. “You can rest in the dorms for one more night, you’re going to need it”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir”, Zhiqiang bowed and Guanheng felt genuinely bad for him. Zhiqiang had been in the company for longer than him, he… his worst nightmare had just come true.

Everything was crumbling down.

“Guanheng”, the teacher said. Guanheng looked up.

“You’re sloppy”, he said. “Inconsistent. On your best days, you are exactly what we require, but we can’t have an idol whom we cannot trust to give us the best A quality"

Guanheng bowed down deep.

“Yes, sir”

“Yangyang, Dejun, you two have a very different problem. Yangyang, you are a great rapper and dancer, and Dejun, you have charisma and a great voice. But you lack in your overall character. For that, we want you three to work as a team to fix these things. I expect you here at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

Dejun and Yangyang answered immediately. Guanheng followed their example and bowed, but couldn’t get a word out.

He wasn’t out?

He wasn’t going home?

For some reason, he felt like crying but he couldn’t say why, anymore. He couldn’t say whether he was relieved or not anymore.

“You all worked hard”, the trainer said. “Now, good night. You all should sleep well before tomorrow”

“Yes, sir!” They said in unison and bowed, once again. The trainers left as a group - their rap teacher patted Zhiqiang’s shoulder comfortingly and whispered something to him, but Guanheng couldn’t hear what it was. The blood flowing in his ears was loud, as though he was at the stormy beach near his home in Macau again. The loud ocean waves, the waters in his crazy, overflowing river were splashing all over the place as they kept moving forward, as though they were running out of time.

He turned to look at the others through the mirror. Fa was staring at his shoes, tears in his eyes, and Dejun was staring at the mirror in front of them, not quite seeing anything. His eyes were glassy. Guanheng and Yangyang locked eyes and their expressions were probably quite similar - what the hell did just happen? Yangyang pulled Fa into a friendly hug but other than that, no one moved. No one even dared to breathe properly.

Once the door had shut behind the trainers, cold silence remained in the room for a short while. It was probably only a few seconds max, Guanheng’s grip on the situation wasn’t very solid anymore. But once it was broken, it was gone for good.

“I’m going to fucking KILL YOU”, Zhiqiang attacked so quickly that no one could do a thing. He grabbed Dejun’s collar and pushed him against the wall, and the younger yelped. “You made me fall, you fucking made me fall, and I’m fucking going to make you pay!”

“I didn’t-”

“ _You’re not a team player_ \- you told them, didn’t you?? You selfish prick, you disgusting, pathetic piece of shit! Who do you think you are? Do you understand what you’ve done?!”

“No!” Yangyang was the first one to move and that made Guanheng snap out of it too, and he ran over. 

“I hate you! I’m going to kill you!”

Zhiqiang was pressing Dejun against the wall hard, Guanheng wasn’t sure if he was choking him but either way, he had to let go _now._ Zhiqiang had tears running down his cheeks too, but Guanheng didn’t care about his distress at all. 

“Let go, Zhi!” Yangyang grabbed his arm. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Yes, ge, stop!” Fa was with him and pulled his other arm. And when Dejun fell on the floor, Guanheng was the first who got to him. The two younger ones tried to hold the yelling and screaming Zhiqiang back, Guanheng got one particularly hard kick on his back but he didn’t care about that either. All he cared about was Dejun, who was holding his throat, kneeling on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Obviously not, that was a ridiculous question but it was the first thing that Guanheng got out. “Dejun!”

Dejun nodded but he looked shaken. He was breathing very quickly, Guanheng feared he would get a panic attack. Or something. He touched Dejun’s shoulders, to make him look up and maybe, just maybe, calm down a bit. 

“I hope you _drop dead!"_

“You’re out of your fucking mind!” Guanheng turned towards the crying and kicking Zhiqiang, the pathetic guy in his twenties who was screaming like a toddler. “You’re out! Nothing will change that so just leave it, Zhiqiang!”

“It’s easy for you to say, it’s so fucking easy for you to say!”

He stopped struggling. Fa and Yangyang dragged him out of the door.

And that was the last that Guanheng ever saw of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter was depressing and annoying but now that it's DONE and OVER WITH I can FINALLY move on. I promise to try to be more consistent from now on. Try, at least. 
> 
> I value your opinion so if you have anything to say, even if it's just a word or two, I'd love to hear it! Anything at all! But now, have a great day everyone, and see you in the next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a very short chapter for a change. I won't dwell in their misery for much longer, don't worry, we're moving forward. 
> 
> Thank you for the support, everyone! It really motivates me!

_And I keep asking, although I know that no one will answer._

_Why me?_

...

“This is like the fucking Hunger Games” 

Yangyang dropped his chopsticks in his cup of ramen, finally breaking the silence that seemed to have stretched out for hours. After Zhiqiang’s outburst, they had been advised to wait at the company until the two trainees picked up their stuff. 

They had been offered one more night. But neither of them had wanted it. Guanheng wouldn’t have wanted one either if he had been one of them. They were out, spending any more time than necessary there would only hurt.

Zhiqiang and Fa had left before the three of them arrived. Guanheng didn’t know where they had gone, and he…

He couldn’t say that he _didn’t care._

But he felt a bit like… like he just _couldn’t_ care about that.

Trainees came and went all the time. If he got too attached and emotional, he would be out. He had learned it already, but every trainee that left was different. He had really liked Fa.

Now, there were only three of them left. He was getting so close.

And he didn’t know what to think about it. Not really.

“Hunger games… eu”, Dejun muttered the name with a Korean accent. He did that a lot, either translating the words that he could or making them sound Korean. He practiced the language all the time, throwing random sentences here and there. 

He was still enthusiastic about learning it. Guanheng wasn’t. He hadn’t been enthusiastic about anything at all for a long time.

_The Hunger Games..._

It kind of was. Losing now would mean getting sent back home, across the sea. Losing their lives as possible idols. 

“I’m going to bed”, Guanheng announced and threw the rest of his ramen in the trash. He felt sick and tired, he just wanted away from reality for a short while. If he fell asleep right away, he might get four hours of sleep, max. For a trainee, that was a lot. A very generous amount.

But of course, the world wasn’t that kind. Not at all. It didn’t really make sense - he was both mentally and physically exhausted and yet, he couldn’t sleep. Guanheng had felt on edge for a long time and the thing he needed the most wasn’t sleep.

So, sleep didn’t find him the moment he got to bed.

But tears did.

And once they started falling, there was nothing to stop them. Guanheng didn’t even care anymore at that point - he cried, he sobbed against his pillow until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He felt so lost and sad, for losing so many of his friends. He felt anxious like he was being choked. He wasn’t going to see his family, and he felt so goddamn sad about it too. He cried loudly, he gasped for air but he couldn’t see, since tears kept filling his eyes.

It got to a point where he didn’t know what exactly he was even crying about, anymore. He just couldn’t stop. 

But slowly, as the night dragged on and he cried alone in his bed, it started to get better. The heavy load on his chest started to evaporate, little by little, rationality returned to his messed up head.

And, once he got his lungs filled with air again, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

He didn’t sleep for very long, though. When he woke up, it was still pitch black and he was still wearing his sweatpants which were, under the blanket in April, way too much. Maybe it was the uncomfortable feeling that made him wake up, or maybe it was the slight noise he heard from the bathroom that he didn’t really register at first but, which was definitely there. It wasn’t very loud, it was as though someone dropped a shampoo bottle, and then another, on the tile floor.

Guanheng glanced at the hallway as he tried to remove his pants without getting up. There was some light there, coming from under the bathroom door. Guanheng stopped in the middle of removing his pants and looked down to see the electrical clock on the nightstand - it read four o’clock, so, he’d have one and a half hours to sleep time left. 

One whole sleep cycle. He needed that one, his body was heavy as though his blood had been replaced with cement. But, as he was moving like a sloth, staring at the clock, hanging at the edge of his bed, he looked up at Dejun’s bed. The blanket was still in place at the side, indicating that the older wasn’t there - Dejun’s blanket usually ended halfway down from his bed before morning.

Right. Dejun. He should sleep. Dejun should sleep.

Without much thought, because he wasn’t capable of many, Guanheng flopped down to the floor. He pulled his pants back up and walked to the bathroom.

“Jun”, he knocked on the door but opened it right away. That was definitely a no-no but again, he wasn’t even fully awake. 

The lights in the bathroom were blindingly bright, Guanheng had to narrow his eyes a lot to see and it still hurt. And indeed, that was where the older was. Sitting under the shower, hugging his knees. The shower wasn’t on, thank god, and his hair wasn’t wet. Why was he there?

“Are you okay?” Guanheng definitely mixed Cantonese and Mandarin but this was Dejun. He always seemed to understand him, no matter what he said or how he said it. 

Dejun didn’t look up but he shook his head. Now, that was a great thing about him - if asked directly, he didn’t lie. Dejun pulled at his sleeves, making it look like he had sweater paws and it was kind of cute. Or, it would be, if his eyes weren’t bloodshot and it wasn’t literally four o’clock at night after one of the worst evaluations they had ever had.

Guanheng just… kneeled next to him and pulled him into a hug. 

He didn’t know what to say because he was torn too. So the best thing he could do was to hug him. And in the middle of the night, when the reality felt tilted and unreal, closeness was perfectly alright. Guanheng pulled Dejun against himself in the most comfortable and warm hug he knew how to give and Dejun seemed to melt against him. He leaned his chin against Guanheng’s shoulder and Guanheng petted his hair sleepily.

“We should sleep”, he mumbled and felt Dejun nod against him. Right.

Guanheng grabbed Dejun’s arm and pulled him after himself to the bedroom. 

Had he been a bit more alert, he would have noticed the quiet tinkling of something falling from Dejun’s hands onto the tile floor. He could have turned around and confronted him about it. It would have been good to do it then, before…

But he didn’t notice. They were both so tired that they forgot all about the bathroom light, instead, they prioritized getting to their room safely.

Guanheng got to his bed and Dejun followed. Maybe it would have been too big of a hassle for him to climb to his own bed at such a late hour, maybe he wanted closeness, Guanheng didn’t know and he didn’t care. His bed was wide enough for both of them, they could share the blanket, it was alright. 

In the morning, Guanheng turned off the alarm and acted as though nothing had happened at all. Dejun rubbed his eyes and together they held cold packets against their swollen eyes at the breakfast table. Yangyang was there too, he didn’t say a word as he downed two cans of Red Bull before leaving. 

Another day of practice.

Another week.

Another month.

…

Whenever Guanheng heard the idols talk about their trainee days on live, or in talk shows, they always highlighted the good memories. Of course, they did. Guanheng knew that if he was ever going to make it out of that hell of a program then that was exactly what he was going to talk about too - he would share the stories about how he and Yangyang used to sneak out to buy snacks from the convenience store, or about the late-night conversations they had or about the time they almost slept on each other in the dance practice rooms.

They weren’t allowed to share the sad stories anyway. But even if they were, he wouldn’t want to do that. He didn’t want people to know about the times when he had cried in the bathroom after practice because he wasn’t good enough. He didn’t want anyone to know about the times he had been yelled at or hit, for being too poor of a trainee. He didn’t want anyone to know about his devastation, anxiety, the constantly lingering fear of getting kicked out.

Some might say that he was being mistreated. His mom would say that he was being used and bullied by the management. But Guanheng didn’t think that way - one couldn’t play this game if they thought that they could bend the rules. A trainee had to be malleable, obedient, a great actor. If he didn’t endure, he wasn’t cut to be an idol, since the entertainment industry was so, so much worse. There was always someone who would sell their kidney to be in his place, so he had to give his all.

If he debuted, if he played his part well for several years, he would grow into an idol who could stand for himself. Who could fight back. Because at that point he would have a fanbase, a public image, to back him up. But he knew - if he didn’t, he was constantly reminded - that as long as he didn’t have a name, a proper contract, he was nothing.

Dust of the ground, just dirt and mud. While SM was the God that was going to mold him into a man.

Guanheng watched NCTs live streams whenever he had the chance to. He had been told to, specifically, by his teachers but even if he wasn’t, he probably would have kept an eye on them. He had been advised to watch a lot of the things that his seniors did and god only knew how many essays he had written about the concerts and other activities he had been made to watch, but NCT was the best one for him educational-wise. Because he had seen them, on and off their idol personas.

So, when Guanheng once again clicked on a Vlive notification to see a few NCT members talk to fans on the floor above him, he observed. 

They were talking about their pre-debut days with such fake smiles on their faces. They were wearing those practiced, detailed, very flexible and natural-looking masks that came with the idol persona. Talking about sneaking out to buy ice cream, about staying over at the company to practice secretly, about the things they had practised. 

No one talked about the times when they had been forced to train on sprained ankles, or how the management had taken their phones and kept them in the practice rooms all night. No one talked about fasting, about being put against each other and the hate they had held for one another. No one talked about the fights that got physical, no one talked about the smashed phones or screaming managers or the tears that hadn’t changed into happy ones.

No one talked about the ones that had fallen. It was as though they had never existed at all.

They kept glancing at the managers standing behind the screen. Talking about trainee days was a very dangerous topic that could ruin the company image - but then again, if they talked about the polished, good things, fans would feel ‘closer to them’. An illusion of closeness was exactly what kept them popular. People wanted to feel connected to them.

Hah. Idols talked about young love and school days as though they had any idea what it’s actually like to grow up into a normal teen. 

“The food is hereeee”, Yangyang sang as he ran into the practice room, holding a plastic bag. Guanheng put his phone away and joined the two others on the floor, to eat what little the management had let them order. They were dieting hard, Guanheng felt fatigued and Dejun’s cheekbones were more sharp and visible than ever before. Yangyang’s hoodies looked way too big on him.

No one talked about those things either.

Because who would want to know about something like that?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up almost everything here so don’t come at me. I’ve only studied law for one course and it did not handle idol contracts. Also, I don't want you guys to start hating entertainment companies any more than you already do, because of this fic - some things I write about are indeed based in real life, but I have made up most of the things you see here. If you want to know whether some things are based on real-life or not, you can always ask me, I'm more than happy to talk about all of this. I have [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/YingCas) and the comment section is always open for you! <3
> 
> Also, I’m sorry that Dejun/Guanheng has been at the back for a while, I’ve been way too into talking about trainee/idol life in general. But the pairing is coming, as promised, just hold on a little longer.
> 
> Lez go

“Guanheng, Dejun, Yangyang. Congratulations, the company would like to sign a contract with you”

At first, Guanheng just stared at the people on the other side of the table, dumbfounded. Had he heard right? He stole a quick glance at Dejun who was sitting on his right side, but the older was staring at the table, looking as confused as he felt. 

“Now, you are not going to become members of NCT, as we originally planned, or at least not yet”, the company man wearing the gray suit (Guanheng couldn’t remember their difficult Korean labels, there were so many) said, but Guanheng felt like most of his words flew over his head and he couldn’t grasp them. “You are going to work under Label V, our newest Chinese branch, just to make everything easier. But you’ll still work under SM, and this contract will tie you in. The length of the contract is seven years, the right to make changes is reserved to SM Entertainment only…”

Guanheng zoned off. 

Debuting? That couldn’t be right. Just yesterday his dance teacher had screamed at him for not being quick enough on his feet. Dejun had been screamed at for his cold that prevented him from doing his high notes perfectly. No one had said anything to Yangyang for days. And Yangyang had been quiet in turn.

Guanheng glanced at the youngest. The Taiwanese boy was staring at the man, his hands crossed on the table. And Guanheng saw something he hadn’t seen in months.

Hope.

Hope for better.

“We suggest you look over the contract carefully before signing it. We’ve scheduled another meeting for tomorrow morning, where we’ll go even deeper into your upcoming training and schedules. So, think carefully and give us your answer tomorrow”

Guanheng bowed as he received the thick stack of papers that he knew he wouldn’t be able to look through in a day. But maybe that was the whole point.

...

When they stepped out, there was someone waiting for them. Or, two someones. 

“Welcome to the family”, Ten grinned. He hugged Yangyang first and laughed out loud as the younger started sobbing angrily. His tears were happy ones though. His sobs were kind of funny and they clearly demonstrated their feelings - the utter despair that had suddenly turned to happiness. They had made it, they were almost there.

No, they  _ were there _ . Yes, they were. They were going to debut. Tomorrow everything would become official and nothing was going to take it from them anymore.

_ They were going to debut! _

Kun hugged Dejun first, then Guanheng.

“Did you know about this?” he asked when he let go of the oldest. Kun was smiling while watching the exchange between Yangyang and Ten. They had switched to English and Yangyang seemed to be spilling his heart to Ten who was drying his tears and patting his back with a compassionate smile on his face.

“Not really, no”, Kun answered. “But Ten had a feeling. And you know how he’s never wrong”

He did. 

The reality of the situation would need a while to set. So, Guanheng was going to be in the same group as Ten and Kun. And Yangyang and Dejun. And Yukhei and Sicheng and possibly, in the future, also Renjun and Chenle. He was actually joining the supergroup. He had proved himself, he was good enough.

Oh god, he had to call his sisters.

“You”, Kun pointed at Dejun. “I’ve heard that you’re quite a singer. I have some beats ready, how about you come to visit me when I’m done with this week’s schedules? We could start practicing together”

Dejun looked like he might pass out from happiness. He nodded a million times.

“Yes, yes, ge, I will!”

Kun smiled happily but Ten had noticed the exchange and rolled his eyes loudly.

“Don’t think too highly of him”, he said to Dejun. “Kun is a dork”

“What's _that_ supposed to mean? !”

…

“95/5 for album sales, 60/40 for concert sales, this looks pretty much identical to my contract”

Renjun had come over immediately after hearing the latest changes. He had been so happy for them, but his main goal hadn’t been to congratulate them - it was to help them check through their contracts. The only people they could really trust were the other artists, other trainees. The management wasn’t doing anything just to spite them, just to bully them, but this was business. And they were trying to win. 

Even Renjun’s Korean skills weren’t fluent enough to check through legal documents like this. So, Jungwoo had come over as well - he was currently going through Dejun’s copy of the contract, flipping through the pages as though he was looking for something specific. Even for him, some wordings were difficult to understand. So, yay. But Guanheng was thankful for his help.

Trainees rarely signed contracts just after checking through them themselves. Most had their parents there (because they were often underaged) and some even hired a lawyer to check through them, to make sure that they understood what exactly they were signing. Technically, Guanheng had the right to do the same. But since he had friends in the industry who had already signed something similar, he could ask them.

He didn’t have money for a lawyer. And his parents were useless in Macau, as they couldn’t speak Korean. _And_ he was a legal adult in Korea, so he was on his own. 

Yangyang had been convinced that the contract was like clicking ‘ _ accept’ _ for _“terms of service”_ \- no one truly read them because it wasn’t like they could change anything in them. And it was either clicking accept or forgetting about the whole thing, and since they had gotten this far, no one was backing away now.

But still. Renjun and Jungwoo had convinced them to think again and check through them before signing a contract that would tie their hands for years to come.

“A-ha!” Jungwoo exclaimed as he found the page he had been looking for. “Here, _the_ _ company’s rights to determine your health _ ” 

Jungwoo pointed at the page but Guanheng couldn’t understand much besides pronouns and the fact that they were using very official language. But if Renjun’s furrowed brows were anything to go by, this wasn’t exactly clear for him either.

“My dad pointed this out to me, actually”, Jungwoo pointed at the text written in very small print. “If you sign this contract, the company has the right to determine when you’re too sick to join schedules. That basically means that some random manager can just take a look at you and say that you’re healthy enough, even if you have broken your shin bone or something.”

“That sounds shady as hell”, Yangyang commented from the armchair where he was desperately trying to read his own copy. “It can’t be legal!”

“It is if you sign this contract”, Jungwoo turned the contract back towards himself and dug his phone from his back pocket. “Don’t worry, usually they send us to doctors anyway, but just in case, I think you should negotiate this. Some of us have changed that part to involve official medical evaluations instead of just the company. Some haven’t and they haven’t died but… it makes the legal process easier just in case something happens. I’ll write some useful vocabulary up for you, so you can talk about this tomorrow”

“Thank you, hyung”, Guanheng said and looked at the contract Renjun was skimming through. Dejun was just walking back and forth behind the sofa since he still read Korean poorly. He looked concerned but not surprised. Guanheng eyed him as he bit his nails while thinking, but turned away when Dejun stopped and looked up.

There were so many things in the contract, so damn many. And it covered every single part of their lives. But, it all culminated into one core concept - the company gives the orders and the artists do as asked. The company has the right to change its mind at any time, and they just had to deal with it. However, he had his contract to fall back on. The only thing he could use to defend himself was this piece of paper.

Not his parents, not his friends, but his contract.

“Is there anything else, hyung?” Yangyang asked. “Something we should look out for?”

“Mmh, you can try to negotiate over your salary but otherwise, this is the best you can get”, Jungwoo handed the stack back to Guanheng who turned to the page that had multiple Won symbols on it. “I mean, I’m not an expert at all. I’m just sharing what I learned from my dad and the older members”

Guanheng nodded. He was glad that Jungwoo could spare them some of his time. He was basically the only one who could since the hyungs in 127 were busy with practice and the Korean dreamies had been sent to school. They missed 80% of their classes but they were still hanging there, trying to get their mandatory education done and over with. They didn't need to reach for high grades since they weren't going to regular universities - they just had to pass.

That still meant a lot of work though.

Technically they weren’t even allowed to talk about his contract with their labelmates, that was how protected the idol contracts were. But how could the company prevent that? However, that was the reason why he couldn’t bring Jungwoo there to negotiate these things for him, not even Renjun or Kun.

“I never negotiated over anything but money. My grandma helped me back then, and she just told me to take whatever I can get”, Renjun muttered and watched as Guanheng fiddled with the paper. “As far as I know, the standard contract, even for foreigners, has changed a lot from the EXO days. So, we’re alright. I’m happy to see you join us”

“Me too”, Jungwoo smiled genuinely and returned to typing on his phone. 

Sometimes Guanheng had doubted it - would they really keep being happy about member additions once it resulted in them getting fewer profits and screen time? But thankfully, NCT didn’t only expand in member additions. lt expanded in new subunits too, the kinds of units that wouldn’t compete against each other. So, maybe it was good. More exposure always meant more possibilities for all of them.

“Me too”, Guanheng answered, and finally dared to smile a bit. 

And the next morning, all three of them signed a contract that sold their bodies for the company, for years to come.

...

For someone looking at them from the outside, not much changed at first. They still trained all day, went to lessons, danced until sunrise, dieted hard. But their mindsets changed, and what had been desperation at first, turned to something much more sustainable. They were no longer driven by fear of failure and anxiety, but instead, what they felt each morning, was the belief in themselves.

Hope.

And that gave Guanheng so much energy, he felt unstoppable for a short while. At night, they sometimes kept hanging out in the living room after showering and talking about their future. What it would be like, standing in the lights, having people scream their names. Recording actual songs that had been made for them, signing albums that had their names and pictures in them. Heck, even the thought of having their voices in the SM Superstar game made Guanheng so excited, he sometimes simply couldn’t sleep when he finally had the chance to.

He was going to be a star.

His head was pulled down from the clouds during practice sessions. They were screamed at a lot, but he slowly learned to take it right. Getting screamed at just meant that he had to try harder. And he did. He reached twice as far as he had thought he could, and finally, he wasn’t the target of screaming anymore. He was the target of praise. 

“Mmh, you are very handsome indeed”, A short woman was checking him out, but not in an inappropriate way. Not at all. She was holding measuring tape and a ruler, as another woman next to her wrote something on a notebook.

Guanheng knew them by name since they had introduced themselves upon arriving at the dressing room. Sunhee, one of their head makeup stylists, and Lili, the one who took care of clothing and creating their looks that way. There were dozens of people working on their appearances only.

“Guanheng, dear, could you strip for us please?” 

Weirdly enough, that wasn’t the first time he heard that phrase, in any language. So, he removed everything except for his underwear and stood in place as the stylists looked over him. He didn’t exactly feel insecure over his body, but standing there, almost naked under such an intense stare _ did  _ make him feel a little funny. He had seen the stylist ladies before, working with other NCT members, and he knew that everyone must have stripped for them like this before.

It was just a part of his job, no big deal.

“Mmh, you could build a bit more muscle. But you can do that later”, Sunhee said in a matter of fact way and moved to look at his face. “I think we can leave your hair alone, for now at least. You have that perfect neighbor boy - look, we can stick to that. We can bleach once you need to fight for attention”

“Oh, that won’t be anytime soon”, the head of the clothing department, Lili, said. “You’re going to be easy”

That meant good, right? If clothing him was easy?

“Tell me, dear, are you going under the knife?”

“Um, it’s not entirely sure yet”, Guanheng answered, finally. He hadn’t been exactly addressed before, not personally. “They were talking about fillers, maybe on my nose? And chin, too”

“Ahhh”, Sunhee sighed and nodded understanding. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“You could do without them though”, the hairstylist called Jiyoung, the only other man in the room, said. “Those imperfections could be hidden with makeup, not everything has to be permanent”

"Fillers aren't permanent. But I get your point. We don't want... another failure into this one group"

Guanheng didn't know exactly who they were referring to, but he could guess. Beauty surgeries didn't always succeed.

Sunhee brought with her a measuring tape and Guanheng stood still as she measured his waist, feet, arms, everything that she needed. She muttered the results to Lili who wrote them down.

“You have great proportions”

“Definitely. We don’t need to customize that much for you”, Lili smiled, as she eyed what she had written. “If only you were a little taller…”

That was  _ rich  _ coming from a stylist who was 155 cm max, but Guanheng just smiled politely. He had gotten way too much praise for things that he didn’t exactly deserve. He was alright. 

“Maybe we should whiten your teeth?”

“Should we remove that mole on your neck? What do you think? It’s pretty ugly”

“Your ankles look weird”

“Your fingers are short”

“You have quite an accent on you. Work on it”

“No, it’s charming! You should keep it!”

“There’s nothing charming about it if seven other people speak the exact same way. It’s annoying. You should speak standard Seoul, or at least  _ sound  _ like you do”

“Forget about Korean for now, you’re going to promote in China”

“Chinese beauty standards are different. We should follow them”

“You have an accent in Mandarin. Fix it”

"Build muscle”

“No, you shouldn’t build muscle”

“Why do you look so tired? Stop eating meat, it ruins your skin”

"Eat more protein, you're going to need it"

“Practise more!”

“Sleep more!”

To say that Guanheng was a little messed up would be an understatement.

“What did they do to you?”

“Double-eyelid surgery”, Jungwoo said and took a deep drag of his cigarette. “I would have gotten it either way, but it was nice that the company paid for it”

Ah, right. Of course. Guanheng had foolishly thought that Jungwoo had just looked different because he took his appearance much more seriously now, his skin was looked over and he was often wearing makeup. But it was obvious now that he said it. The double-eyelid surgery was so common, Guanheng felt like it couldn’t even be considered a real plastic surgery treatment.

“They were this close to fixing my nose as well”, Jungwoo's thumb and index finger were so close to each other that Guanheng failed to see the gap between them. “Thank god my debut was too close and I wouldn't have healed quickly enough, so they had to drop the idea. I don’t think a small nose would fit me, it would have just made me look even more like Taemin, but maybe that was the point”

“Same for me!” Yukhei nodded while trying to light his own smoke. The wind was going crazy even between the buildings, his flame kept dying out. “They wanted to fix my nose to look more like Minho sunbaenim’s. But it’s obvious that his nose has been touched on as well!”

“But they did nothing to you at the end, right?” Guanheng asked. “I don’t remember seeing you having bandages”

“Yeah, they did nothing. They just style me and put a lot of makeup on me. They might do the same to you”

Yukhei finally got his cigarette lit up and filled his lungs with the sweet poison.  Guanheng did the same. He wasn’t particularly stressed, or maybe he just had forgotten what it felt like to be stress-free, but he had joined the chain smokers. The nicotine addicts. He would become one as well if he wasn’t careful. 

Who cared, though. It wasn't as though his lifestyle was healthy in any other way either.

"They are planning to work on Yuta hyung's chin again", Jungwoo said as he tapped his stick at the edge of the small ashtray that someone had nicely brought there. "They say he's starting to look old"

"Old? Isn't Yuta like, 22 or something?"

"24", Jungwoo nodded. Ah, right, the Korean age system. Guanheng still kept forgetting that it existed. "But yeah, ridiculous. Taeil hyung has visited the surgeon multiple times as well, but they have yet to decide what to do with him. They're afraid that he'll get permanent lines on his forehead"

If someone heard them talking about this outside of the company walls, they would get a lecture of a lifetime. One could never be too careful, with sasaengs and all. But there were times when Guanheng just simply didn't care enough. No one had ever been caught smoking at this particular place so, he deemed it safe.

The door behind them opened, and Guanheng was the only one who still tried to hide his cigarette. The trainees were reprimanded for it, but idols were just… the managers asked what they needed and often even bought them their cigarettes because if idols did it themselves, they had an even higher risk to get caught. Guanheng doubted Jungwoo had bought a single pack in months, with that silver hair of his he would get caught in a second. 

The person appearing behind the door wasn’t a part of the staff though.

“Oh, hey”, it was Dejun, looking pissed. His emotions fluctuated a lot, this wasn’t the first time that Guanheng saw him express negative emotions such as anger, but still, it made him uneasy a bit. Why was he angry? What had he been doing?

“Are you okay?” Jungwoo asked as Dejun slammed the door closed behind him and walked up to them.

“Super”, Dejun snorted. “Guess who just heard that their whole face should be reconstructed in order for him to debut”

“Shit”, Jungwoo cursed with his whole chest. Oh, the fangirls would be quite shocked if they knew what their precious snoopy did in his free time. “Do you want a smoke?”

_ “Please” _

Jungwoo handed over his pack and Dejun picked one. Yukhei gave him his lighter and the younger put the stick between his lips and lit it like he had done so a million times before.

Guanheng had been so sure that Dejun didn’t smoke. But why would he think like that? Because he seemed so cute and innocent? Wait,  _ what? _ Was  _ that _ what Guanheng thought of him? Now, on the outside staircase, Dejun looked nothing but cute. He looked masculine, blowing the smoke out between his lips, his thick brows furrowed, his jawline clear and sharp. He looked rather…  _ hot _ doing it.

Dejun noticed him staring and lifted a brow, but Guanheng just quickly looked away. Shit, that’s not what he should have done, now it was obvious that he had been staring. He felt his cheeks warm up a little, so he turned away to spit on the ground - like a middle schooler trying to be cool. Agh, now he just looked like an idiot. What had he been thinking? What _was_ he thinking? 

Dejun treasured his voice. But so did Jungwoo, and he still smoked like a chimney. Dejun had a lot of experience on stage and on TV, so he should know how to handle stress like this. And still, Guanheng had thought that he was inexperienced and someone that had to be looked after. Guanheng had wanted to be superior, he had kind of wanted to be the one Dejun would look up to, to seek help from. And he  _ had _ been, and…

Dejun smiled a little at something Yukhei said. Guanheng turned to look at Jungwoo instead, but he was so much less interesting than the Cantonese man smoking right in front of him. And that was when it really hit Guanheng.

Shit. He was screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny enough, I wrote most of this chapter before hearing about the latest 'news' regarding Jungwoo. Honestly, I don’t care who smokes and who doesn’t. I spent a big part of my childhood trying to get my mom to stop doing it but then I just had to give up and now I couldn't care less. It’s unhealthy and bad for the environment but so are many other things we do. I’ve been the one who criticizes others, but then again, I’ve also smoked myself. Idols’ smoking is none of our business, but still, we are allowed to have our own opinions.
> 
> What are yours?
> 
> (Also, I'm talking about smoking quite a lot in this fic but don't you dare get influenced here. Avoid addictions, they're annoying and limiting on so many levels and really not worth it)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had difficulties staying awake for more than a couple of hours at a time and I have no idea why. I’ve taken a break from studying, but I got some bad news again and haven’t felt like writing. Maybe it’ll get better at some point, maybe not. Anyway, I finally managed to finish this chapter so, yayy!
> 
> Thank you for all the support you've given the story, it really helps <3

“So, I’m just going to have to throw that one character away?” 

Anyone who didn’t know Dejun would think that he was just nervous because his Korean skills were bad. But Guanheng could see that he was upset. 

Names were important to them. Their parents had picked each character for a reason, Guanheng would have hated cutting his name too. That was why he wasn’t even going to suggest his birth name to the company men - they didn’t even know how to pronounce it. 

But… he wasn’t coming up with anything better either. His English name, Henry, would never cut it because SM already had a Henry. SM also already had a Kun and Hang or Heng itself sounded stupid as fu- Ah, just stupid. Guanheng needed to stop cursing, the amount of screaming he would get for cursing in a live show someday didn’t sound very appealing to him. 

Hen… Henry… 

“Yes, Xiaojun without De. It’s good to have a stage name, something that no one else has ever heard before, something unique”

The one abandoned syllable was hanging heavy in the air as Dejun - Xiaojun - accepted his fate. The staff wrote it down and moved their attention to-

“Guanheng?” One of them asked. “Do you have an idea?”

“Yeah, Uh”, _think, Guanheng, THINK._ “I thought… how about Hen... de… ry?”

The man who spoke the most blinked as his colleague wrote something down.

“Hendery?” He tested the syllables. “Where does it come from?”

“Just, um, my English name is Henry so, uh, I don’t know, I think it sounds nice”, Guanheng shrugged. He didn’t, for a single second, expect such a ridiculous name to pass but at least he had an idea of his own! That was all they had been asked for beforehand, so now they couldn’t reprimand him.

But then, the men looked at each other.

“Well, it’s unique”, one of them said. “Memorable”

“Yes, I like it”, the other one nodded. “Let’s go with that!”

After that, they just moved to Yangyang and Guanheng returned to staring at the table. They kept doing everything together, the three of them, and all decisions were made in the order of age. Yangyang got to keep his name because one of them had to.

Guanheng felt Dejun’s eyes on his skin but he didn’t dare look at him. It wasn’t like he had stolen his name or anything, he had just… been inspired by that one syllable… Okay he didn’t know what he had been thinking but now the name Hendery was black on white, in their files, and he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it anymore.

Hendery. Such a random name. But maybe it fit him. He was kind of a random person. And that was the _only reason why_ he had suggested the name. Period.

Once the staff released them from the office half an hour later, Dejun pulled him aside in the hallway.

“You”, he looked like he didn’t know what to think, really. “Stole my morality”

De also meant morality in Chinese. So that was exactly what Dejun meant and nothing more. Nothing more. 

“No, I didn’t!” He had to keep his cool, it wasn’t like he would admit doing something like that right away.

Dejun was so close, looking up at him with his eyebrows furrowed, a frown on his face. His eyes were sharp, as he kept staring at Guanheng in the eyes, looking for something. Looking for _evidence_ , maybe. Guanheng just stayed quiet, not knowing what he was supposed to say. He gulped, and Dejun finally dropped his eyes.

“Am I supposed to call you Hen _de_ ry now?” Dejun asked quietly and Guanheng was pretty sure that he was staring at his lips but why would he do that there in the open and how was Guanheng supposed to act knowing that oh god his brains startedtomeltandhe-

The moment was broken when a door next to them was pushed open, and a bunch of NCT members bursted out - it looked like 127, but Guanheng was too busy jumping away from Dejun and bowing that he didn’t really see. His cheeks were burning - what the hell what the hell _what the hel_ l - 

He just excused himself to the bathroom, where Yangyang had gone immediately after the meeting, and he splashed some cold water on his face.

_Keep it together man, keep it together._

Then, he took a long smoke break. Holy fu- _damn_ , preparing to debut was so _stressful._

…

“We want you to move to a dorm together, all seven of you, and Jongmin”

Jongmin was their newest manager, the one assigned for Guanheng, Dejun, and Yangyang specifically. He was sitting next to the company men, trying his best to smile a little. Guanheng had met a bunch of managers during his time in the company but this was the first time that someone had been assigned to him, specifically. Usually, the trainees had been the responsibility of many different people, usually the ones who had the time. 

Of the seven people sitting on Guanheng’s side of the table, he and Dejun had been the freest. The trainees had more freedom than debuted idols, and since Yangyang was still a minor, he was looked after as well. Kun was completely free whenever he went to China, basically. At first, when Guanheng had started as a trainee, he had gone back and forth between China and Korea as well so he knew how that worked.

But from that day on, none of them could walk on the street without someone keeping an eye on their location every single moment.

“It will just be the three of you at first”

No one specified exactly which three, but it wasn’t needed. Many just referred to Guanheng, Dejun and Yangyang as ‘the three’ and that was it. The three newest additions, the three Chinese trainees. The three upcoming _SM Rookies!_

"When the Black on Black promotions are over, the rest will join you and we will empty the old U dorm entirely. But since that will only be in around three weeks’ time, we’ll assign your roommates now as well”

Guanheng felt a bit excited and nervous about that. It was like when they had been assigned the sitting order in the classroom by lottery back in his primary school days. Is he going to sit with his friends? Or some of the most annoying people? Girls?

Yangyang straightened next to him. They were lucky in a way that none of them really disliked each other, at least not yet. The three of them still looked up to Sicheng and Ten too much to challenge them in any way, and Kun was also a senior. Yukhei hadn’t been separated from them long enough to become a senior. Yangyang had fought with him a few times when they had been trainees, but as far as Guanheng knew, those had all been solved. 

They weren’t themselves under the trainee day pressure anyway.

Behavior training taught them how to get along with all kinds of people. If Guanheng could choose, he would replace many middle school algebra classes with those kinds of classes. He had learned to take a deep breath, count to ten and get along with the kinds of people he never would have imagined he could stand being in the same room with, not to even mention sharing a room and living with. Many people that he knew from his past would use those skills. 

Anyways, Guanheng crossed his fingers under the table. He was open to anyone but of course, he had his hopes for certain people.

“The way we decided upon, we want every new member to share a room with an older one so that you can help each other out and get closer quickly. So, it’s Lucas with Winwin, Ten with Hendery, and Xiaojun and Yangyang will share a room with Kun. Jongmin will have his own room, but he will only stay over on workdays. We assigned one of the old NCT Dream aunties to help around your dorm as well, she will start working tomorrow. You can take the rest of today off, for moving”

Guanheng, Dejun, and Yangyang had a blast listening to music from Yangyang’s Bluetooth speakers as they packed what little they had. Every now and then Guanheng found something that had belonged to someone other than the three of them, and he got… weirdly sad.

_“Not a single mention of the past trainees. Not their names, nicknames, vague descriptions, nothing at all. If you start to tell a story in a show by accident, just replace the people with debuted members. You have to pretend like the fallen trainees never existed at all”_

_Forget them._

As if. Zhang Dahai had been the one who had taught him popping and locking on his third week in the company. Wu Mingli had helped him with understanding Korean honorifics so that he didn’t embarrass himself and disrespect his seniors while bumping into them in the hallways. Wen Fa had handed him tissues when he had cried after twisting his ankle in dance practice (and many, many practice sessions after that). Kim Do Yoon and Baek Chin Hae had taken him and a bunch of other foreign trainees to the Lotte World after his first anniversary in SM.

Guanheng wasn’t going to forget the very people who had made his trainee period bearable to him. Who helped him grow despite not making it themselves.

He took the tiny Ryan key chain that he had found from under his bed and dropped it to the bottom of his cardboard box. Dahai probably wouldn’t miss it but Guanheng couldn’t throw it away either.

... 

The new dorm wasn’t very luxurious, it was as old as their past one, but it held fewer memories of the trainees who had left and felt more fresh in that sense. Sharing a bigger dorm, just the three of them, was fun. Their manager was reliable and the dorm auntie cooked delicious food and kept the common space clean. So many changes were happening all around them, Guanheng felt the excitement in his stomach and they shared their feelings together, their thoughts and hopes and everything, getting closer than they had ever been before.

But when the lights were shut, and quietness enveloped their dorm, Guanheng suddenly felt out of place. Because all he could hear was the air con. Not another person breathing and turning close to him. There were some people who couldn’t sleep if there was any noise around them, but Guanheng was different. He had grown up with roommates, he was so used to another person’s presence that suddenly, he couldn’t sleep without it.

Guanheng had gotten so used to Dejun’s sleeping habits that he suddenly felt empty having a room all to himself. Of course, he was glad for the chance to have some privacy for the first time in years, but it had its downsides too.

He’d get used to it, he thought. But a few nights later, he wasn’t any better. Since their practising got a bit less physical and more mentally draining (Korean and behavioral classes meant sitting around the whole day and they made him bored, not tired) it took him more and more time each night to fall asleep.

So, once he got bored of turning around in his bed, he got up. He warmed some water for himself to drink (since they had been told not to eat at night - Guanheng was so scared of his cosmetologist that her stare alone was enough for him to stop eating snacks) and sat next to the living room window. 

That became his habit, whenever he felt like he couldn’t sleep. Usually he just sat alone for an hour max and then finally felt sleepy enough to go back to bed. Sometimes, he saw someone else wandering around the dorm as well.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked Yangyang as the younger made his way to their open kitchen. Yangyang just yawned as he opened one of the cabinets. 

“I’m starving”, he said as he pulled out a granola bar. “What are you drinking?”

“Water”, Guanheng said and Yangyang shut the cupboard. 

“Ah, I was hopeful that they bought us Coca-cola”, he muttered. “Okay, I’ll head back to bed”

After having signed an official contract, their lives had suddenly become so much more controlled. Having the dorm auntie during the weeks was both a blessing and a curse - she made them delicious and healthy food, but, she also kept an eye on the food stock and did the shopping for them. They didn’t have time to go to the store themselves, and if they did, they had to tell their manager who prohibited them from buying anything unhealthy. Basically whenever the auntie wasn’t there, their kitchen cabinets were mostly empty, so that they didn’t eat extra.

It would probably change after they debuted. Guanheng knew that the dreamies could drink cola and eat instant ramen as much as they pleased. So, they had to hold on until their debut. Whenever that would be.

Guanheng nodded and watched as Yangyang dragged his feet towards the door. But before the younger stepped into his and Dejun’s room, he turned around.

“Have you seen Dejun?” 

Guanheng blinked.

“I thought he was asleep?”

Yangyang shrugged.

“He’s not in his bed. He’s taken his blanket with him so he might just be having one of his dramatic moments again”

Dejun’s _dramatic hours_ had become a running joke, sort of. Or maybe _joke_ was not the right word. Dejun had the ability to be cliche and melodramatic in his own, clumsy way, and Guanheng and Yangyang had learned to, sort of, come to expect it. It was just a part of his personality, and if Yangyang was asked, _an annoying and cringy_ part.

Guanheng wasn’t sure. It was just him. Dejun was like that. There was nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.

Guanheng had seen the light under the door of the bathroom quite often when he had wandered around the dorm, unable to sleep. But it hadn’t been lit today. So, he had no idea where the older could be - in Yukhei and Sicheng’s room, maybe? Maybe he wanted some privacy? But the beds didn’t even have bedsheets on them, why would Dejun want to go there? Unless… unless he wanted to sit in the corner and weep or something.

Weird, but Dejun might do that.

Either way, he probably wanted to have his privacy. But Guanheng couldn’t help but be a bit worried about him from time to time. In his eyes, Dejun was still the newest trainee who had come to him for advice. He was still the one who lacked skills in being cold and indifferent - they had been trained in behavior a lot and Dejun had a hard time not being empathetic. 

An idol had to know the skill of separating their heart from their work sometimes. Dejun was bad at that. His heart was so warm and filled with mystery. _He_ was so warm and filled with mystery.

Ah, anyway.

“Maybe”, he answered Yangyang. “I’ll look if I find him. It’s not like he could have gone far.”

“Thanks, bruh”, Yangyang mumbled with the granola bar already stuffed into his mouth, and stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

Guanheng took his time to drink the rest of his water. Dejun was a big boy. And if he had his blanket with him, it meant that he couldn’t be freezing.

Wait. Why would he take it in the first place? The dorm was warm since it was almost July already, there was no reason for him to be wrapped in a blanket inside.

But maybe… he wasn’t inside?

Guanheng brought his mug to the sink and glanced at the digital clock of the microwave - it read 04:35, so he had been tossing and turning in his bed for an hour after waking up from his restless dreams. At first he had tried for longer, but since he had learned that just hoping for sleep to come wouldn’t help, he had started to give up earlier.

But anyway, they should all be asleep at four in the morning. Their next practice session would be at nine so, not quite as early as usual, but still. Tomorrow they would spend most of the day practicing for photoshoots so, if they were all extremely tired, they wouldn’t remember much. Dejun had had photoshoots before so he was… mostly alright probably, but Guanheng hadn’t and he was nervous. That might be one of the reasons why insomnia had bothered him that particular night.

Guanheng checked Yukhei and Sicheng’s room but deemed it empty quickly. He also looked into their manager’s room - he wasn’t there that night, he slept in the dorms around 50% of the time. That was empty as well. Guanheng glanced at the bowl near the front door, meant for their keys, and saw that Dejun’s bunch was gone.

Had he really gone out?

But where?

Guanheng took his own keys with him and stepped out to the staircase to find out. 

Now, the apartment building they lived in was not very big. It only had eight floors and their dorm was on the seventh. The moment he stepped in the cold staircase, he could hear the cars just a tiny bit louder than he should. So, instead of heading down, he turned to walk up.

He saw it even before he was on the highest floor - the door to the roof was slightly open, just a shoe left under it to keep it from shutting closed. Guanheng furrowed his brows but stepped closer.

He had chilled with Chenle before, on the roof of the 127 dorm. But he didn’t know that they could climb on the roof of this building as well.

Guanheng opened the door carefully and looked out. It was still dark, the sky was clear of clouds but starless since the city polluted the starry sky with its artificial lights. Guanheng looked around as he let the door fall back against the shoe and he stepped on the cold roof. It wasn’t like anyone could fall down from the side, the roof was like a huge balcony but there was nothing there. Maybe some people smoked there but not much else.

He spotted Dejun quickly, as he was the only uneven shape against the lights, like a big chunk of mass being wrapped into the blanket. He was leaning against the railing, looking down into the city. The whole sight felt a bit unreal, being outside on the roof at half-past four in the middle of the night. 

In the morning, actually.

Guanheng didn’t want to freak him out but he also didn’t want to keep staring at him like a creep.

“Hey, Dejun”

Dejun turned around, to look at him and took off one of the earphones that Guanheng hadn’t seen him wear. “Oh. Hi. What are you doing here?”

_I could ask you the same thing._

“Looking for you”, he said instead. “You should be asleep”

“You shouldn’t have”, Dejun said and turned around again, to look down to the city. “I just couldn’t sleep and came to watch the city lights. You can go, I’m… I’m okay”

Mmh, didn’t really sound like that, now that Guanheng saw and listened to him. Against Dejun’s wishes, he walked next to him and leaned against the cold, hard railing of concrete to see down on the streets as well. A mistake - he felt dizzy, his heart jumped at the sight - they were eight, almost nine floors up, after all, the ground was very far down. His fear of heights had gotten better but it was still his greatest weakness. Or no, it was right after frogs.

Guanheng breathed in the night air and looked at Dejun instead, who was already looking at him.

“I can’t sleep either”, he said, to distract his own thoughts from how high up they were. “I’m so stressed about tomorrow”

“What, photoshoot training?” Dejun wasn’t mocking him, he just seemed surprised. “Oh, you’re a natural, I’m sure you’ll be good at it in no time”

“Thanks”, Guanheng smiled a little and then nodded towards the one earbud hanging from the wire, moving as Dejun moved. “What are you listening to?”

Dejun looked down at the earbud and took it in his hand.

“Ballads. You might not like them, but”

He offered it to Guanheng who took it right away. Immediately, he heard the piano and the soft male voice singing in English. He spoke very little English so, it was no wonder that he didn’t understand what the song was about. So, he asked about it.

“Oh, this is, um, I’ve read multiple translations but the song is very hard to explain”, Dejun bit his cheek as he looked down to his phone, where the name of the song was written. “ _Flightless Bird, American Mouth_. It’s from, um, Twilight”

Ah, of course. Dejun and his unusual fondness of cliche teen movie sagas were well known among them. He was the sad prince. 

"It's a beautiful song" 

Dejun smiled a little and turned to look at the street again. Guanheng, instead, had a hard time looking away from him. So, he didn't.

Dejun had beautiful eyelashes, he noticed. Thick and long, resting on his cheeks as he looked down at the lights.

When he was awake and alert, Dejun’s facial expressions kept changing rapidly. He smiled, he laughed, he looked around. At some point in time, Guanheng had thought that it was exhausting, spending time with him since he seemed to constantly be on edge. But he had learned that it was just a habit for Dejun. As well as his fiddling and the way he moved, like he couldn’t choose where to go and he kept changing his mind mid-step.

And when he was excited, all of that was even stronger. Dejun was special. He was gifted, beautiful and complicated, in the best way possible. 

A cold wind brushed over the roof and Guanheng shivered. Right, he was only wearing his t-shirt. Dejun noticed immediately.

“Oh, I’m such an _idiot_ , come here”, he opened his arms to share the blanket with him. Yeah, _Dejun_ was an idiot for bringing something warm, and not Guanheng who had gone outside in the middle of the night with only his pajamas. Granted, he hadn’t expected to stay outside for very long but still.

“Uh, it’s okay”, he tried but Dejun wrapped him into the blanket anyway. “Okay, thank you. If you don’t mind me staying?”

It was a bit late to ask that but at least he had asked. 

“Of course, I don’t. I don’t _own_ this roof”, Dejun rolled his eyes and pulled the blanket even tighter. Underneath it, Dejun wasn’t wearing much more than Guanheng. And he only had one shoe. “I’ve been here alone for long enough. Company is good. Actually, do you mind sitting down? My ankles are freezing”

No, he didn’t actually, it was much better to sit down. He didn’t want to whine about his fear of heights and now he didn’t need to, yayy!

He didn't want to seem weak to Dejun. Or... yeah. Guanheng didn't know exactly how to deal with him or his own messy head. Most of the time he just felt comfortable around Dejun but every now and then... the butterflies in his stomach went crazy. He tried to keep them in peace because crushing on Dejun was wrong on so many levels. He tried not to think about it.

But there was nothing wrong with spending some time with him. They were close friends after all, and he hoped they would remain that way.

Dejun moved the blanket so that they were sitting on it and not only the cold roof. They listened to Dejun’s playlist and watched the high buildings around theirs. Right in front of them was a skyscraper, a business building. Most of the windows were black but there were a couple where the light was still on. Poor people, were they finishing their past workday or already starting a new one? 

Everyone worked themself to death in Korea, as well as where the two of them came from. They were lucky that they could dance and sing instead. 

“What’s been keeping you awake?” Guanheng asked. It might be rude to do so, but enveloped into the dark night, their eyes illuminated by the faint city lights, he felt like he could do anything. Or, almost anything.

Dejun shifted a little.

“I’ve been thinking. About, you know, everything”

If Guanheng knew anything about Dejun, then it was that he needed an outlet for his thoughts. Sooner rather than later.

“Wanna tell me about it?”

Dejun thought for a while, fiddling with his phone and changing the playlist to a very similar one, containing more ballads probably from similar movies. 

“I’m afraid”, he said quietly, over the music. Wrapped in the same blanket, they were luckily so close that they didn’t need to talk very loudly at all. “Of what the future will bring us. I’m afraid of what I will become. I don’t want to lose myself in the process”

“What do you mean by losing yourself?”

Dejun took a deep breath to clear his thoughts.

“I don’t want to become arrogant, full of myself. I don’t want to lose myself to the lights, forget who I really am when I’m made to portray something different every day. I don’t want to forget what it is like to be happy without all that fake praise of some random fans who don’t even know me”

Guanheng would be a liar if he said that he had never thought of that as well. In a way, people who were good-looking, popular and had social influence, were also allowed to be arrogant - there was nothing wrong with recognizing your power. But still, that wasn’t who he wanted to be, not at all.

Right?

“See, this is already drilling into my head!” Dejun chuckled without any joy in his voice. “I’m already just expecting to be loved by some people, even though I’ve done nothing to earn that. I haven’t even debuted yet and my head is already being polluted by these ridiculous ideas”

“It’s not your fault”, Guanheng rubbed his back. “We were hired to play a part. We are going to have fans the second we are made public because we’re from SM and we are being made pretty. That’s just how it works, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that”

“But it feels wrong, being happy about that”

“You shouldn’t feel like that”, Guanheng said quietly. “After all this time, you should enjoy the good things wholeheartedly. You’ve deserved that much”

“But I’m afraid that I get addicted to the attention”, Dejun muttered and hugged Guanheng a bit closer. Probably because he was cold, yeah, that was the only reason. “That I forget why I started this all”

_Why did you start?_

That was a question Guanheng didn’t need to ask Dejun. He saw the answer in the tiny sparks in his eyes whenever they hit another goal. Whenever they dreamed together.

“That’s why we’re a team, remember?” Guanheng said quietly. “Whenever someone forgets, we’ll remind each other. We’ll pull each other down from the clouds, back to the ground. We’ll look out for each other”

Dejun was quiet for a short while. They kept listening to another piano ballad, one that Guanheng had heard Dejun hum before but otherwise didn’t recognize. He could bet his lunch that it was from the Twilight soundtrack though. Dejun listened to other things too but whenever he was feeling particularly melancholic, he listened to songs from those movies.

Maybe he connected them to some happy memories or something. They both had been around ten years old when the series had been popular, after all. Guanheng had never seen the movies though. Maybe he should. 

Or maybe not.

Dejun hummed along to the chorus. Guanheng started to feel just a bit tired, since sharing the thick blanket with Dejun meant that he was really warm. He felt so comfortable with the other like this, the butterflies that sometimes appeared when they spent time together had all gone to sleep and he just felt content. He could feel Dejun’s breathing against him, and slowly, very slowly, the black night sky started to become lighter above them.

“I’ve never been the one who people… like”, Dejun muttered after a while, and hadn't the song just ended, Guanheng would have had a hard time hearing him. “So is it wrong if I… If I take it now?”

Guanheng blinked some sleep from his eyes but was unsuccessful. Still, he wanted to listen if Dejun had something on his heart. That’s what friends were for.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never had many friends. People were… they just didn’t like me, they always told me that I would fail, and I’ve always had to work twice as hard to prove myself. I was never enough the way I was. So… if I want to be liked just for who people think I am… is it wrong?”

Guanheng felt his heart twist at what he heard. Of course, there was a reason why Dejun was always so insecure and felt like he had to explain himself, prove himself. Dejun deserved to be liked. 

But.

Relying on fans who could turn their backs on them anytime would not hold. It wouldn’t be healthy, nor safe for his tender heart. Dejun had to be able to separate work and real life from each other in his mind. And if he gave too much to the people who he was never going to know… he would be in danger.

“I like you for who you really are”, Guanheng said quietly. “And Yangyang does. And Renjun does. And Kun and Yukhei, and in the future, Sicheng and Ten as well. And the manager gege has a soft spot for you”

“No, he doesn’t”

“Yes, he does”, Guanheng smiled a little. “I can’t blame him for it”

Dejun looked at him a little funnily like he didn’t know what to say. It reminded Guanheng of the time in the hallway after they had gotten their stage names, nearly two weeks ago. The name Hendery was now jumping on Guanheng’s eyes everywhere, he was being branded by some skillful marketing professionals - _Hendery_ was like full-body armor that he was just going to jump into when the time came. 

And Dejun became Xiaojun. An exaggerated version of his current self - or, only a few things had been exaggerated. Some things had been erased entirely. And what he wanted or didn’t want to keep was up to SM, not him.

Dejun looked away and leaned his head on Guanheng’s shoulder. Guanheng tensed a little, but wrapped his arm around him, and leaned his own head on his as well. That was much more comfortable.

“Thank you, Guanheng”, Dejun almost whispered. “I wouldn’t be here without you”

“Yes, you would”, Guanheng believed in him much more now than he had in the start. “We just made it a bit easier for each other. That’s all”

“Well, thank you for that then”, Dejun said with a tiny smile. “Hendery”

“It’s going to take a long time until I get used to that name”, Guanheng rolled his eyes. “Xiaojun”

“It’s going to take me a long time to learn to like my name”, Dejun sighed. “Oh well. I shouldn’t complain”

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to complain. And you should too. We can always complain to each other”

Guanheng couldn’t say for sure, but it felt like Dejun smiled at that. 

“Yeah, okay”, he said. “Let’s stay together for a long time”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron & Wine (from the Twilight Soundtrack) has been my ‘Most Listened’ song on Spotify for two years in a row. I had a Twilight phase back in the day when I was a kid and the movies were popular so, although the series isn’t very good, I connect the songs to some very good memories. Do you guys have anything like that? Movies or books that are objectively not good at all, but are dear to you for some reason?
> 
> Since I won't be back before it comes, happy Christmas everyone! I hope you all stay safe and healthy, and that the next year is better for all of us. <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling heartbroken once again over my stupid feelings towards this one stupid person and this stupid mess between us so I didn’t have any motivation to write. This chapter is very important to the story so I didn’t want to rush it. I wrote a sentence here and there while lying in bed and feeling depressed so yeah, now you’re going to suffer with me. Yay. I'm sorry for not answering all comments, I'll try to get to them on the weekend - I won't leave anyone on read.
> 
> I just remembered that I forgot to tag this earlier - there will be mild sexual content in this story. I am NOT intending to write smut here so don’t worry (and sorry if you were expecting some) but as this is a love story as well… it’s hard to avoid it entirely. 
> 
> Please please PLEASE read the tags carefully if you’re sensitive or might get triggered by something. I will not give any additional warnings. This story is tagged M for a reason.

_ “First, my morals. What comes next? Are you going to take my sweet innocence too?” _

_ Dejun’s voice was raw after practice, when he whispered to Guanheng. The want, lust, swam in circles in his dark eyes. Guanheng wanted to drink it from his lips, feel it through his skin. _

_ “Who knows, would you like to find out?” Guanheng answered and Dejun smiled a little. The lights were off, only the dim glow from the hallway played on his high cheekbones. Guanheng stepped closer, and pushed him to sit on the sofa. He climbed on top of him, spreading his legs as he sat on Dejun’s lap, not at all caring about the fact that he was wearing sweatpants that would reveal everything. He placed his hands on Dejun's chest, shoulders, neck, feeling the warmth of his boiling hot blood running in his veins. _

_ “You know”, Dejun spoke so softly, drawing Guanheng even closer. His hands found their way to Guanheng’s ass, then under the hem of his shirt, on the equally hot skin. “My father would disown me if he knew" _

_ “Your father?” Guanheng smiled and dived down to press his lips on Dejun’s neck. “I doubt that” _

_ The beautiful moan that escaped Dejun’s lips as he sucked went straight to his dick. Oh god, it felt good. Guanheng made a beautiful, dark hickey on Dejun’s skin as he squirmed under him from how incredibly sensitive he was. Guanheng pulled away just a bit to see his face better, and he smiled at the sight - Dejun was coming undone under him, his cheeks were flushed red and his eyes half-shut, his gorgeous long lashes resting on his cheeks. _

_ Finally, Guanheng pressed his lips against Dejun’s. Shivers ran down his spine and Dejun’s nails sunk deep into his skin, Guanheng licked over his lower lip because he wanted to- _

“Guanheng!”

He was pulled back into reality coldly, as though a bucket full of ice cubes had been thrown on him. Guanheng blinked his eyes open and realized that he was in his dorm room, currently being shaken awake by Kun.

And, he realized that he was  _ hard _ , and his  _ hand was still wrapped around _ -

“Set your alarm louder next time, okay? Gosh”, Kun fussed and turned off Guanheng’s alarm that was screaming and vibrating against the wooden nightstand. He felt completely red and just wanted to hide under his blanket but Kun was having none of that. Kun pulled the blanket and Guanhend screamed as he pulled it back.

“For God’s sake Guanheng”, Kun rolled his eyes. “Come on, we will leave in fifteen minutes!”

Oh no. Oh fuck no, _ NO. _

“Can't you just go?!”, Guanheng’s voice broke as he squeaked and it was embarrassing as hell but he NEEDED HIS PRIVACY RIGHT NOW.

“Fine, don’t scream”, Kun was still tense but he put his hands up as a sign of defeat. “Just hurry up”

“Close the door when you go!”

Kun slammed the door shut as he left, already yelling at someone else. Guanheng closed his eyes and thanked whatever god was up there that it didn't have to go more embarrassingly, and got to… got to  _ work. _

It was embarrassing, how quickly he came to the picture of Dejun from his dream - _moaning_ _under him on the couch of their practise room._ When he did, he couldn’t even feel any pleasure. Just shame, eating him from the inside. He didn’t have time to dwell on it though - he threw the tissues in the trash, got dressed, and wore a mask to cover his unshaved face.

Once he got to the others, he didn’t dare lock eyes with anyone at all. Least of all Dejun, who was visibly trying to catch his eyes. Guanheng knew that he was still bright red but nothing was going to drain that color from his face - the humid, 40 degrees of August air only added to his agony and made sure that the already light clothing stuck to his skin.

Two months. He had been doing so well for two months since realizing that he was, in fact, nursing an inconvenient crush on Dejun. The others had moved to the dorm with them and they had started training together every now and then, and Guanheng had forgotten everything about his sexual frustration and about his maddening crush on the older Cantonese guy sleeping on the other side of the wall. They had celebrated Dejun’s birthday two weeks before, with a teeny tiny bit of alcohol and  _ still,  _ he had behaved himself and done nothing stupid despite being intoxicated. He had done so damn well that he was almost surprised.

And then he woke up from some stupid, erotic dream that prevented him from ever looking at the black sofa in the third-floor practice room the same again.

“Now, listen up, guys”, Jongmin said as they all gathered in the practise room at SM after an agonizing fifteen-minute car drive (it hadn’t even felt like a car, more like a sauna) “Yangyang, Hendery, you need to re:do your voiceovers for the Re-born clips. Ten, Lucas, you are needed in the basement practise room at twelve so, you have two hours to work through your Come Back choreo with teacher Cho before it. Got it?”

“Yes sir!”

“We will work hard!”

“Woohyun will take over while you’re there, call him if you need something”

And so, they were thrown to the hands of someone else when Jongmin excused himself out of the room and teacher Cho took over with their newest manager, Woohyun. They were thrown from one pair of hands to another constantly, as though they were toddlers who had to be looked after 24/7. But, like, toddlers who had multiple caretakers.

Anyways.

Guanheng felt happy whenever they came to the practice room now. At some point during his time as a trainee, he had lost all joy that he had felt towards dancing, and it had just become a chore. Something that he had to be good at or else he would be  _ DEAD _ \- the art in dance had been long forgotten. 

But it was different now. With Ten and Sicheng, two very artistic dancers, as his tutors, he learned so much and started to enjoy dancing again. It wasn’t just about executing the steps perfectly but instead, performing the choreography, making it his own, and turning it into art. 

He was excited again. Hopeful again. He enjoyed his rap lessons and vocal lessons much more as well. Even Korean.

Every weekday in the afternoon, while waiting for the others to join them in practice, he and Dejun did their homework in the hallway.

“It’s  _ isseulkka _ , not  _ isseulkaa, _ you keep dropping the double giyeok all the time”

“You sound like Hermione”, Guanheng rolled his eyes. “And besides, you do that as well!”

“All Chinese people do that”, Kun said from where he was playing a mobile game next to them. “It’s the accent, it’s not a big deal”

Dejun sighed and wrote something on his worksheet. Guanheng stared at his own worksheet too, an identical copy of Dejun’s but it lacked the marker strokes, doodles, and random comments written in every possible corner. 

It was as though Dejun was draining his colors onto the papers. Maybe he was.

“You could work on that though”, Dejun mumbled. 

“And you could work on your Mandarin”, Guanheng snapped in turn. However, he regretted it the moment he saw Dejun’s hurt face. “Sorry”

“It’s fine”

“You really should, though”, Kun commented, not looking up from his game. “Your pronunciation could be much clearer. We are going to promote in Mandarin after all”

Dejun nodded as he looked down at the paper again. Guanheng bit the inside of his cheek but didn’t say anything. Kun was right, Dejun had an accent that wouldn’t be so nicely treated in the mainland TV, amongst the Mandarin-speaking population. Chinese TV required perfection, usually. 

“Let’s just move on to the next exercise”, Dejun sighed and Guanheng turned the page to see another set of example sentences.

...

There was a downside to everything because of course there was. Not everything about their debut preparations went smoothly. Aside from SM and LabelV that kept changing their plans constantly and the confusing stuff that kept happening behind curtains that not even Guanheng was allowed to look into, there were other problems. One of the major ones being their group dynamics.

Their transformation from random trainees and NCT members to one, seamless group hadn’t been as smooth as Guanheng had expected it to be. He had learned to always expect the worst in SM, but still, he had hoped that this  _ one thing _ would be easy. Guanheng couldn't even say exactly what their problem was, but something simply didn't click.

Maybe it was their differences in experience or lifestyle or something, maybe it was the bizarre rules that the company kept setting on them that gave them more pressure - whatever it was, Guanheng hoped it would vanish quickly. Because the dorm that had previously been their safe space had become something suffocating, uneasy. They fought with each other and Guanheng felt like they had to keep being on their toes to avoid conflict. 

Most things had something to do with Ten, which was surprising to Guanheng. They kept fighting over cleaning every now and then but that wasn't the worst part. Ten seemed to constantly be on edge because of the pressure the company put him under - by the time the year changed, the Thai should be able to speak fluent Mandarin and nothing else. He was supposed to heal from the injuries still haunting him, and he was supposed to almost be like a different person.

Kun was struggling with being a leader. Guanheng didn’t even know exactly what kinds of things he did behind the scenes but he was having many more meetings with the higher-ups than anyone else. He was tired and constantly felt under the weather. He tried not to show it but he was bad at hiding it. Yukhei was struggling with his language studies as well and he was constantly tired because of the hyper personality assigned to him. He was allowed to tone it down in their team and he was thankful for it - in NCT China he was no longer the youngest, neither did he have to fight over screentime with as many people.

Sicheng was constantly irritated over work-related matters, for maybe obvious reasons. However, he felt more motivated towards NCT China. The only downside was that as a senior artist he was expected to talk and take space now - when he had been frustrated before, he had been able to just shut up and no one had expected much from him. It would have to change, whether he got any lines in NCT C or not.

Yangyang was just Yangyang. Energetic as ever, but in that environment, it meant that everyone else was irritated at him then.

And Dejun... was still starstruck around Ten. And Kun. And Sicheng as well. And he was awkward around Yukhei for some reason too. Sometimes he and Guanheng talked about it on a smoke break - Most of the time it was just the two of them because only other people in the group who smoked were Ten and Yukhei and they were often away, doing "NCT stuff". Dejun was always like a taut string, and Guanheng felt stressed out only looking at him. 

Maybe that was why he snapped at the other more often. He made sure to apologize right after, but it kept happening more and more frequently. The others were very similar in that sense, little blow-ups here and there might not sound like much, but as there were seven of them, they became regular and added to the already tense atmosphere. They were like ticking time bombs.

They got angry about everything. Irritated. Guanheng started to notice how the smallest of things could push his buttons and drive him crazy. It went to the point of if someone simply breathed wrong around him, he wanted to punch them.

As their group practice schedule picked up and they spent even more time together, Guanheng felt exhausted to the bone, both physically and emotionally. He no longer wandered around the dorm at night. He was out the moment his head touched the pillow, and when the alarm woke him up in the morning, he still felt like he hadn’t slept at all. It was a new kind of exhaustion, one that he could manage for as long as he had hope.

So, it must have been fate that he woke up in the middle of that one particular night. Guanheng didn’t know what exactly woke him up but suddenly, he was wide awake, staring at the ceiling panels.

_ Oh shit not again, _ he thought. If he got his insomnia back, it would crush him. But Guanheng knew himself well enough that once his body decided that it didn’t want to sleep, there wasn’t much he could do about it. He got up and tiptoed out of the room, careful not to wake Ten.

The air con was humming loudly in their common room, once he got there. September was particularly warm that year, but it was their managers who complained the most when they slept over at the dorms. Guanheng and the other members had grown up in warm climates, Ten was  _ Thai _ \- it didn’t make them superhumans who could bear any hot weather but generally, they knew how to deal with warmth better than the Koreans.

They still rarely enjoyed it though.

Guanheng saw the light under the bathroom door and halted mid-step. Was it Dejun again? It could be anyone really, but usually, it had always been Dejun. Guanheng hadn’t exactly been nice to Dejun lately - he had moved from bickering with him to avoiding him as nicely as he could. He had to, in order to let go of his stupid crush. It was unhealthy to him, inconvenient, and frustrating. As soon as he got rid of it, the better. Dejun had other friends, he had befriended Renjun who frequently came over to hang out with him so, he should be alright. It wasn't like Guanheng was his best friend or anything.

Right. They weren't even roommates anymore so they didn't even need to talk to each other every day. Dejun had made no effort to get closer to Guanheng so, maybe they should keep up the status quo for a while. It would work at some point, it _had_ to.

But… earlier that day Guanheng had stepped on Dejun’s foot very hard during practice, and he hadn’t even said sorry. He didn’t exactly know why. Their dance teacher had been watching them like a hawk and he had just rushed to the next sequence, and later it had just felt… awkward. He had seen Dejun rubbing his foot later so he had thought of doing it then but… he hadn’t.

He felt his conscience beat him up when he thought about it. Yeah, he should definitely apologize, even if it had been an accident.

In the middle of the night while the other was in the bathroom? 

Uh… But if he waited until morning, he might never do it. There was this weird feeling that surrounded him in the middle of the night, that made talking somewhat easier. The weight of the day was hidden in the shadows and words felt lighter. Kind of like the feeling after the first drink, the sweet feeling of freedom and infiniteness.

Guanheng walked past the door, to get himself some water. He would apologize once Dejun stepped out.

What exactly was he even doing in the bathroom so often at night? He spent so much time there. Usually, Guanheng didn’t waste thoughts on the peculiar bathroom habits of the others - sometimes the bathroom was the only place where they could get a little privacy. They closed their eyes and let each other take those long showers without interruption when they had the time for them. 

But Dejun… he couldn’t be jerking off every night, for hours. That just couldn’t be true.

Guanheng drank his cup of water. And another. And no one stepped out. The world was asleep, and Guanheng felt like he was the only soul awake. 

Maybe he was. Maybe the bathroom light had been left on by accident. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Guanheng left his cup on the table at first but then moved to put it in the sink to avoid complaints later. He could turn off the light of the bathroom as well, to avoid Kun’s lecture in the morning - he kept stressing over their water and electricity bills and Guanheng had no idea why. Company paid for them anyway.

He walked on the balls of his feet on the linoleum floor. He moved like a ninja, making sure that he made as little sound as possible. Not that anyone would wake up to his steps but the night was so quiet, he felt like he needed to respect that. The door to the bathroom wasn’t even locked, Guanheng opened the door quietly, and-

And everything fell apart.

Guanheng didn’t have the right words to explain it. He didn’t have them at that exact moment, neither did he find them afterward when he thought about it. He saw Dejun, standing in front of the mirror, and the light of the bathroom ceiling lamp touched something in his hands, something that reflected light way too well.

Something that he shouldn’t be holding like that.

Guanheng knew immediately what it was about, he didn’t need to see any more. But he did anyway. In just a second his eyes ran over Dejun's dirty hands, up to his cheeks that were smeared with a little blood. As though Dejun had wiped it there on purpose. Or maybe he had been wiping some of those tears that kept falling from his eyes.

Guanheng felt sick.

One second, he watched him. The next, he was already next to him, grabbing the blades and throwing them on the floor. The clattering of them hitting the tile floor and dirtying it seemed to echo through the whole dorm.

“What the hell are you doing?!” His voice was way too loud in the quiet night. “Are you out of your mind?!”

“No, don’t!” Dejun whimpered and fell on his knees, trying to reach for the blades again. "Let me do this! You… You don't understand!" 

"What do I not understand!??” 

Guanheng tried to kick the blades further but he obviously couldn’t do it. He kneeled on the floor and grabbed Dejun, trying his best to block him from getting his hands on them again. The other was weak, tired, but he put up a fight.

One of the blades that Dejun had been holding before fell down the drain and he gasped, his voice breaking from his sobs.

“No!” he whined and tried to go after it but he obviously couldn’t. Guanheng was holding one of his arms, their feet were somewhat tangled into a mess on the floor. “N- now I'm exactly what they said I always would be! Let me GO”

“No!” Guanheng pulled Dejun against him and hugged him as though his life depended on it. Dejun kept struggling so it was extremely difficult. “Who says?! Who is making you do this?!”

“I’m a burden”, Dejun sobbed. “I shouldn’t be here! Everyone knows it,  _ everyone _ , I don’t deserve anything, let me go!”

“No, I won’t let you hurt yourself!”

“I’m NOT”, Dejun gasped, as though he couldn’t breathe. Guanheng had never seen him like that - so… so out of his mind, so hysterical and doing something so disgusting… Guanheng wanted to hold him, preventing him from ever hurting again. 

“Stop, Dejun, please”, He begged. “This is not the answer”

“You don’t understand”, Dejun kept repeating but he kept losing his energy to fight back. “They always said I’m too weak, that I shouldn’t be here… That I… I… That I’m too weak to even...”

He was so small and bony, Guanheng had known that he was on a diet but he hadn’t noticed just how small the older had become. He just kept disappearing and there was nothing Guanheng could do. 

He knew something about Dejun’s past. But then again, the more he thought about it, the less he understood. He didn’t really know anything, he didn’t know how he should speak to Dejun about something like this, he knew absolutely nothing, all he knew was how to hold him so that he couldn’t move.

“If you kill yourself then that's exactly what you are!”, Guanheng said through his teeth. “Then you're just doing exactly what they want! Do you want to let them win?”

Dejun didn’t answer with words. Instead, he slowly went limp in Guanheng’s arms and just… just cried. He sobbed, on top of Guanheng on the cold floor. Guanheng didn’t know where the blades had gone, whether he was lying on them or whether they were somewhere on the floor. He didn’t care. He… He felt angry and confused and he wanted to scream and run away but having Dejun in his arms like that, he… he… he… what was he supposed to feel? What was he supposed to say?!

He wanted to scream at Dejun for being so foolish. If he cut his skin open… he was an idol for god’s sake, any scarring could potentially ruin his career. His life. Was this what he had been doing every time that Guanheng had seen the light under the door? For weeks now?! How could Dejun be so selfish, how could he do something so fucked up and disgusting?!

How could Guanheng help him?! What could he do?! Dejun sobbed and they just hugged each other tighter, as though that was the only way for them to stay afloat. To stay alive. 

“Don’t do this, Dejun”, he wanted to ask what was wrong but he wasn’t going to get an answer. “You’re stronger than this”

The other just shook his head aggressively.

“I’m n- not”

“Yes you are”

He cried even more at that. Guanheng closed his eyes and tried to pet his hair as he kept bawling, struggling to breathe but still holding on to him.

“I- I don’t want to… I d- don’t want to die”, Dejun sobbed and Guanheng felt like his heart was being cut in half. “Why do they want me to die? Why am I… Why is nothing I do enough, why am I never enough? I… Guanheng, I don't want to die. But why can't I live?”

“I don’t know”, he didn’t know what else to say, a tear escaping from his own eyes as well. A painful, single tear. “But I’m here, Dejun, I’m here”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. This has been a long time coming, hasn't it? These things are complicated and everyone who experiences things like these reacts differently. I will continue this scene in the next chapter, I know that it's very messy now but it is like that for a reason.
> 
> Happy 2021 everyone! I honestly don't expect much, but I hope for better days. And you know what they say about hope - it's stronger than anything. We will make it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Long time no see, eh? I haven't been doing very well, yet again, I'm one of those people who is always haunted by the darkness so I tend to disappear every now and then. I'm trying my best to update this story through - writing it makes me happy.
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments. I'm sorry for taking so long to answer them, but just know that I appreciate each and every one of them. They cheer me up a lot and motivate me so thank you for letting me know what you think. <3
> 
> Oh, and I promised not to give any additional warnings but we talk about cutting in this chapter quite a lot. So, if you can't handle any of that, skip the first scene entirely. I have separated it with a ..., like I often do so, look for big spacing in the text.

_Whenever I meet someone, it always goes just like this._

_I’m so afraid of… of feeling anything. All I can do is wait with fear choking my heart, and wonder just how long it will take until they get disappointed in me._

_Until they start to despise me._

_Until they see how broken, disgusting, and worthless I am on the inside._

…

Quiet. 

After what felt like years of lying on the floor, they finally fell into silence. No one had come to look for them, despite the door being left ajar. No one had disturbed them. No one had heard.

Or maybe everyone had disturbed them, everyone had heard, but Guanheng just hadn’t noticed. 

Dejun was finally breathing normally. He had stopped crying and Guanheng was waiting for him to say something. The cold bathroom floor was uncomfortable to lay on but he didn’t dare move. He had a lot of time to think about what he should say next when the inevitable apology would come, so he just waited for it before speaking.

He knew Dejun well enough to know what _he_ would say next.

Hah, _he knew Dejun._ And still, he hadn’t been able to prevent… whatever the fuck that had been. 

“I’m sorry”, Dejun whispered, his breath tickling Guanheng’s neck. “I’m so sorry”

“Don’t say sorry”, Guanheng said. “Please”

“I disturbed your sleep”

“Stop talking shit Dejun”, It came out way too harshly. He hugged Dejun a bit better, to show him that he hadn’t said it just to be mean. “You need to… You need to stop doing that. And… You need to talk to someone. Someone _professional_ ”

“No”, Dejun shook his head. “I can’t”

“This isn’t healt-”

“If they hear that I’m fucked up like this then they’re going to kick me out”, Dejun said as he sat up from on top of Guanheng. “I can’t let that happen''

_Well, maybe if debuting would lead to your destruction and death then maybe it would be better that way?_

Ridiculous. Of course, they would have to keep it a secret. SM provided idols and trainees nearing debut some psychologists, but there was no such thing as confidentiality when it came to serious matters. It even said so in their contract - _25.2 health: the artist is required to discuss all health-related matters with the company, and the medical personnel are advised to deliver appointment details without further discussions._ As in, whatever the doctor wrote down would go directly for their managers and higher-ups to see.

An idol with mental health problems even before their debut?

Hopeless. Waste of investment.

Dejun’s cheeks were still tinted red, his eyes looked even worse, and all Guanheng could see was just someone who was broken. Someone who was exhausted and hurt, lonely and frustrated deep in their soul. Dejun’s awkward facial expressions and his small, erratic movements and nervous habits were all gone, and he was just this ghost of his usual self. All tiny sparks and colors that usually spread around him were covered in thick, heavy shades of darkness.

Dejun… must have been hiding that part of himself for a long time. And Guanheng could understand why, although he hated it. He didn’t know how to deal with this side of Dejun at all.

“So what then, are you just going to keep cutting until you die?” Guanheng asked as he sat up too. They were very close, it felt even closer than before now that their faces were mere centimeters apart, but there was no tension between them. Just the dark cloud of… whatever, deep in the night.

“It’s n- not like that”, Dejun shook his head and looked down to avoid Guanheng's eyes. He kept stuttering - Guanheng had frequently noticed him stutter in Mandarin but _never_ in Cantonese. “I’m not… suicidal. It’s more like… l- like, I try to keep myself grounded this way”

After all the things that he had said and done, Guanheng simply couldn’t believe him. Dejun couldn't hide from Guanheng anymore, no matter how hard he tried. 

“Where do you do it?” Guanheng asked.

Dejun froze. Guanheng had thought that Dejun was already frozen compared to his usual self but he had been wrong. The older looked visibly uncomfortable.

“Guanheng-”

“Where do you cut?” Guanheng wasn’t leaving without proper answers. “I’ve seen your wrists. They’re clean”

“Only an attention-seeking idiot cuts their wrists”, Dejun muttered and closed his hands into fists next to his body. “I would never do that”

 _But you do it somewhere_.

Guanheng touched Dejun’s left hand and was faced with no resistance at all. Dejun kept his eyes on the floor as Guanheng took his hand in his and bent his finger gently, to see his palm.

Guanheng wasn’t one to get disgusted by blood. In general, he had quite a good grip on himself and he could deal with lots of things without batting an eye. So, seeing the broken skin and droplets of blood, as well as the halfway formed scabs on Dejun’s skin did nothing to him physically. He just felt sad - so extremely sad.

His anger had vanished while lying on the floor, listening to him cry. Yeah, Guanheng still thought that it was a fucked up thing to do, but Dejun… he wasn’t fucked up. He was hurt. Deeply hurt.

He wanted to ask why and tell Dejun to stop. But that wasn’t the right way to go about it.

“Isn’t it inconvenient?” He asked instead. “You run a risk of getting an infection, and it doesn’t heal very quickly”

“Yeah”, Dejun nodded but didn’t pull his hand away. As though he had given up - he was already caught, what was there for him to do? But Guanheng didn’t want him to see it in a negative light. Thank _God_ he got caught. “But if I do it along the lines on my hand… once it heals, no one can see”

The scarring. 

Guanheng hated how thoughtful Dejun was about that too, because it meant that it wasn’t just a spur of the moment thing, but that he had spent time thinking about it. Planning it. Guanheng bit the inside of his cheek and closed Dejun’s hand gently. However, he still kept holding it, while he continued talking.

“Where else?” He asked. Dejun shook his head a little. 

“Guan-”

“Dejun”, Guanheng kept saying his name, hoping that it would wake him up from the blurry reality that he lived in, where cutting seemed to be a good option. “Tell me. If you can’t tell anyone else, then tell me”

“Why do you care?” Dejun muttered. “I have it under control, there’s nothing for you to worry about”

 _You clearly do not_ , he wanted to say, but again, decided against it. Yeah, why did he care? In his head, that was such a ridiculous question because _of course_ he cared about Dejun, it was as obvious as… as the fact that the sky was blue and the sun rose from the East. And that water was wet. And the grass was green

But it wasn’t as obvious to people around him, he had made sure of it. Dejun was an overthinker, and he was smart, so he had obviously noticed Guanheng’s attempts to stay away from him too. But while Dejun kept overanalyzing everything trivial, he also tended to ignore the words that were repeated to him again and again and again. 

So maybe words weren’t the best way to show him that he cared. 

But at that moment, he couldn’t really offer him much else. In the future he would have to, because he was the only one that knew about this side of Dejun, about _every_ side of Dejun, even those that he tried to hide. He was the only one who could help him carry this burden.

“We are a team, remember?”, Guanheng whispered. The light of the bathroom flickered a little, like it often did when it had been left on for a long time. Guanheng felt like they had been there for hours. “We should share our burdens with each other”

Dejun kept his eyes on their connected hands - or, his fist that was secured between Guanheng’s hands. And he furrowed his brows. It was better than his blank, pained face, but Guanheng didn’t like how doubtful he looked.

“But no one else has such a heavy burden”, Dejun muttered. “I can’t pay back”

“That’s not true, we all have our problems”, Guanheng shook his head lightly. “They’re just different. And there is no paying back here, we just want you to be alright. You’re an irreplaceable part of the team”

“If someone else had been chosen… it would be easier for you”

Guanheng closed his eyes for a second. Typical Dejun, only seeing the bad in himself and nothing more. Always doubting himself and the world. Guanheng liked Dejun, but he hated this part of him. 

This tiny voice that kept telling him those nasty things.

“Dejun, I’ll be completely honest with you”, Guanheng said as he opened his eyes again. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do this with anyone else. I can’t talk for the others but I can talk for myself - I care about you a lot”

Guanheng placed a simple kiss on Dejun’s knuckles. It had come so naturally to him, it was weird, fuck, did he go over a line??? _What the fuck Guanheng how is that appropriate?!?!? You’re both guys and Dejun is in a fragile state and you go on kissing his hands like… like WHAT??? aodjfhsslfhlsdvbnjbsilhfkjdgfsljfhjbskychgs_

And that resulted in quietness because of course, it did. Guanheng’s cheeks were burning, he didn’t look up at Dejun again, instead, he leaned his forehead against their connected hands. Oh, fuck, why did the night have to make him do such ridiculous things?! But he wanted Dejun to understand - no, he _didn’t_ want him to understand his deepest feelings because that would be awful and inappropriate, but he wanted Dejun to know how much he appreciated him! How much he cared!

And how much it hurt him, seeing the older do something like this.

Dejun was hard to get through to, sometimes. It was as though any negative comments went straight to his heart, but anything positive had to be forced, sent a million times but only a couple of words truly hit the target. It was as though someone had programmed a virus inside of him that ate all kind words before they met his heart.

“My thighs”, he whispered, eventually. 

“Huh?” Guanheng looked up again, but Dejun wasn’t looking at him. He looked anywhere but at him.

“Sometimes my ankles. Or my _fat_ stomach”, Dejun muttered, clearly going through an inner turmoil. “Never the same place twice, never too deep to cause permanent damage. I don’t want to leave any scars”

And Guanheng couldn’t bite his tongue in time.

“How long have you been doing this?"

Dejun finally pulled his hand free. 

“Years maybe, on and off”, Guanheng could see how each word hurt him. “It’s… It’s hard to explain, you wouldn’t understand”

“Try me”, Guanheng answered. “Please”

Dejun’s eyes filled with tears again, and he opened his mouth but no sound came out. Guanheng pulled him back into a hug and Dejun cried a few more tears. 

“You don’t deserve this pain”, Guanheng just whispered and hoped that it would be enough. For now. “We don’t have to talk about this now, but… talk to me when you feel the urge to do it again, okay? Tell me. I don’t want you to hurt alone”

Dejun leaned his chin on Guanheng’s shoulder and nodded as his answer.

It wasn’t perfect and Guanheng couldn’t trust him with his full heart but maybe it would get better. He wanted to hope so. 

Guanheng had no idea what time it was or how long they sat there, in the other reality that was the yellow bathroom, but suddenly, he was ripped off his thoughts by someone knocking at the door.

“Um, can I come?” It was Yukhei. “I need to pee and Kun will _kill me_ if I try to do it in the sink again”

The older sounded like he had just woken up - or rather, left his bed before even waking up. Maybe that was why he knocked on the obviously open door. He probably had no idea who was inside but the light told him enough.

Guanheng didn’t have much time to think. He just pulled the shower curtain over the situation - which was Dejun on his lap and possibly the blades spread around them - and yelled at him to come in.

Yukhei was so sleepy that he just did his business and left, no questions asked. After he was gone, Guanheng got up and locked the door.

“We have to clean up”, he said quietly. “Do we need to put plasters on something?”

“No”, Dejun looked defeated. “It’s not necessary”

Guanheng couldn’t force him to anything, but he wanted to help in some way. As Dejun finally stood up to wash his hands in the sink, Guanheng gathered the two blades from the floor.

He put them in his pocket. He was throwing them away, no questions asked. Dejun hissed as he washed his hands, and Guanheng offered him a towel to dry his hands to. That was when Dejun gasped and seemed to come alive - once he saw Guanheng’s hands.

“You’re hurt!"

Dejun took his hand and inspected it. The blades had cut through Guanheng’s his skin as he had taken them from Dejun’s hands and thrown away. The blades had been sharp, but his cuts weren’t that deep. He hadn’t even noticed them before, too occupied with Dejun. And it wasn’t like he was bleeding anymore. A couple of days and those cuts would heal on their own.

“Not worse than you”, he muttered, but he saw Dejun’s expression change again. He looked pained, and one last tear still escaped his eyes.

“I’m sorry”

“It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt. And it’s not like _you_ cut me, I’ll survive”

“But it’s my fault”

Guanheng could repeat a million times that it wasn’t, but he knew that it wouldn’t get through to Dejun.

“I was being careless, it’s my own fault”

Dejun still looked like he had accidentally shot Guanheng or something.

“Let me put a plaster on it”

If that made him feel better, sure.

Guanheng watched as Dejun cleaned the cut very carefully and wrapped his thumb in a skin-colored plaster. He was being so gentle, Guanheng tried to mimic his actions on him but he wasn’t nearly as deft as him. Dejun refused any plasters on his palm but Guanheng patted his hand dry with a towel, as carefully as he could. It didn’t look nearly as bad anymore, once the extra blood was gone - maybe that was why it had gone unnoticed for so long.

By the time they were done, someone was, yet again, knocking on the door and they had to get out and on about their day. Like nothing had happened at all.

...

In a way, he wanted to stay further away from Dejun because he didn’t know what to do. But then again, in a way, he didn’t want to let go of him for a single second, because he didn’t know what the other would do if he was left alone. Guanheng felt torn whenever he had the time to think about it - so maybe he should have been glad that he didn’t get any time for himself at all as the practice schedule became more intense.

They didn’t get much time alone, just the two of them. _No one_ got any time alone. One moment, it was September, then he blinked and suddenly it was November. New choreos, new instructions, new group classes and group dynamic exercises and language classes and everything one could imagine. Guanheng closed his eyes in the dentist’s office while getting his teeth whitened, and opened them in the gym where he was being screamed at by his trainer, as he lifted weights double the amount he had thought he would be able to do.

In real-time it wasn’t that messy. They still joked together and went out to eat dinner every now and then, but looking back, it was just blurry. Afterward it felt like the whole autumn and winter leading up to his debut felt unclear and days and weeks were difficult to separate from each other. Guanheng forgot a lot of things, basically everything that wasn’t directly linked to his debut.

His mom asked him why he hadn’t called her in two months. In Guanheng’s head, it had just been yesterday when he had done it last. When Kun asked when he had eaten last, he answered:

“Six o’clock”

The oldest blinked at him. 

“I’ve been with you since four in the morning. We haven’t eaten”

“I know for sure that it was at six”, Guanheng rubbed his forehead. “We ate dumplings”

“That was yesterday”, Kun put his pile of papers away and turned towards him. “Should I be worried?”

“Ah, no”, Guanheng shook his head and forced a chuckle. “I’m fine, I must have forgotten”

Kun had a million other things to worry about. If Guanheng had forgotten to eat, then he couldn’t be that hungry. Kun wasn’t eating either, he was perfectly fine. 

So, Guanheng’s mind was occupied all the damn time, and he became forgetful. The stress became just static noise, like tinnitus in the back of his mind. He really didn’t have much energy other than staying awake and learning dance and rap, but he tried.

He stayed quiet around Dejun but tried his best to keep an eye on him. They were all together almost 24/7 anyway, but still, he tried to stay glued to the other’s side at all times.

When he wanted to let out some steam by acting like a middle-schooler, he went to Yangyang. They didn’t exactly have any extra energy to spare but they needed an outlet, twerking along the newest girl group releases and screaming the lyrics so loudly that their throats hurt, worked somehow. Guanheng goddamn loved Yangyang for always being able to lift his spirits and occupying his head that constantly kept wandering to dark places whenever he thought about-

Yeah. If he wanted to have fun, he went to Yangyang. Or Ten, if the older had the time. Or even Yukhei. But during the other times, he was next to Dejun. He didn’t make a big deal out of it, he just stayed next to him because that way he knew that he was alright. When the others teased him, Guanheng stayed quiet. He sat next to him on the sofa and stole glances at his hands that healed and no longer got new patterns. Guanheng wasn’t a cuddler but sometimes, as sleepiness took over and the movie they had chosen for the night ( _group-strengthening activities!_ ) was boring as hell to him, he leaned against Dejun and closed his eyes.

Dejun smelled good. His body was the perfect size for him to cuddle against (just slightly smaller than him, Guanheng liked wrapping himself around the other, as though he could protect him from his thoughts with his body) and he didn’t resist which was nice. When they watched movies, he stayed in place and didn’t feel the need to keep commenting on everything happening on screen (unlike Yangyang and Yukhei) so napping against him was very comfortable.

“Guanheng”, the older whispered when they were halfway through some overly cheesy romantic drama - _because they needed to get familiar with what their target audience enjoyed._ Or something. “I need to go to the bathroom, let go”

“Bathroom? To do what?” Guanheng mumbled and only hugged him closer. “Don’t go”

“Nothing like that”, Dejun said quietly. Their living room wasn’t huge, so the others would definitely hear them - thank god they couldn’t understand Cantonese, otherwise, the discussion would have been very weird for them, maybe raised some suspicion. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I promise”

“Okay”, Guanheng mumbled and let him go. He trusted Dejun enough this time, the other wouldn’t pull a stunt like that again, now that he knew that Guanheng knew. Not that he would blame him if he did, stuff like that was hard to heal from, but… yeah.

When he was gone, Guanheng blinked his eyes open properly. They were still all in the living room, most of the others were staring at the TV screen, clearly invested in the cheesy story, but Guanheng could feel a certain pair of eyes drilling to the back of his head. He closed his eyes again, trying his best to ignore them. When Dejun came back, he automatically wrapped his arms around him again and drifted off to sleep.

Most of the WayV members weren’t cuddlers but Guanheng knew how much the NCT members liked being close to each other. So, there was nothing weird about his behavior. 

There was nothing weird about the way in which he ruffled Dejun’s hair on his way to get coffee in the morning. Or about the way he always offered Dejun a bite of his food, or a sip of his drink, or how he fixed his hair unasked and offered him water and a towel or whatever he might need. It was a conscious decision at first, to pay more attention to him - Guanheng had spent his night following the cutting episode googling ways in which he could help without being overbearing, and one piece of advice that he came across multiple times was: _show_ him that you care. Small actions can go a long way.

_Don’t just say that you will be there for him. Show him that you see him, care about him, and want to be around him no matter what. Even if he doesn’t heal._

That was the least he could do. And seeing Dejun’s expression light up a little whenever he offered him a bite of his lunch or fixed his hair was payment enough for him. He wanted more of those moments, and suddenly, paying more attention to him became something he did unconsciously. And Dejun did it in return - Guanheng felt his heart light up with joy when the older leaned against him in turn or showed him something on his phone.

There was nothing weird about it. 

But of course, someone would confront him about it because _hello?_ They were a group, after all, a group of especially curious and nosy young men. They might be busy but they were also building a group dynamic - small changes were always seen by someone.

“So”, Ten jumped on his bed one afternoon and scared the shit out of Guanheng who had just tried to look over his Korean homework in peace. “What’s going on?”

“I’m doing my homework..?” Guanheng gestured towards his papers but Ten just rolled his eyes theatrically and jumped a bit closer so that their thighs pressed together.

“Not that, dummy, you know what I mean!” 

Guanheng furrowed his brows.

“I… don’t?”

Ten blinked at him, unimpressed.

“What is going on with you and Dejun?”

Ah. Um. Shit. Eh. Guanheng tried to appear as though he still didn’t get it but he had never been a great actor in real life and Ten started grinning annoyingly, proving his failure.

“We’ve grown closer”, Guanheng admitted. “So what?”

“What do you mean by _grown closer?”_

“What do _you_ mean?” Guanheng tried to bury his face in his papers but Ten snatched them from his hands. “Is there not enough rumors going on in NCT that you have to start bothering me?”

“Aw what’s with the cold shoulder, I thought I was your favorite.” Ten dared to _pout_. “I just want to know what’s going on with my didis!”

Yeah, for sure he did. Ten was one for drama, he knew all gossip there could possibly be and he was curious, always hungry for more information. It might have been the infamous ‘SM dungeon’ that had done it to him - when Guanheng had first started as a trainee, Ten had been busy with Hit The Stage and he had been planning many solo projects that had eventually crashed or been moved to later because of his injuries. So, as he had been suddenly out of work, he had found new ways to keep up with NCT. 

By making sure he was always up to date with whatever rumors.

And there were a _lot_ of them. Ten wasn’t the kind of person who would run around and tell everyone everything that he knew but... Guanheng had a lot of information on which trainees Haechan was currently seeing and who had kissed whom in the SM Halloween afterparty and who was rumored to have flirted with whom and-

Their senior artists were classy. But NCT was truly Neo in more ways than one, the young people were having fun in the SM hallways and Ten knew all about that.

So, Guanheng didn’t exactly want to open up to him. Not because he didn’t trust him - he was pretty sure that if he seriously told Ten that it was a secret, it would stay as such. Or, mostly. Johnny might hear, but that was honestly not a problem. Johnny and Ten were… an interesting pair of friends, so to say. But this was something that Guanheng wasn’t going to talk to anyone about. Ever. His inappropriate feelings and Dejun's struggles were nobody else's business. 

“There’s nothing going on, really”, Guanheng said. “Nothing like _that_ at least. I’m… I’m homesick and being with Dejun eases it a little, since he speaks Cantonese and all”

 _Ohhh quick thinking,_ Guanheng patted himself on the back. Ten tilted his head to the side like a puppy - his hair was a mess but he looked cute with it, his hair was still undamaged and fluffy, and as he was wearing his big sweaters, he looked adorable. Small and cute.

Yeah, Guanheng had definitely had the hots for Ten back in the day. He had learned to see him a bit differently when they had all moved in together, but he still looked up to him. He admired him, but it was different when he also technically slept next to him every night, and had seen him naked (accidentally!) and also been there when he had sneezed milk out of his nose.

Guanheng had a hard time keeping stuff from him when he asked. Ten knew how to be persuasive and he full-well knew what Guanheng had thought of him, even though he hadn’t said it to him straight-forward because he _wasn’t an idiot._

“Aw man, and I thought we could have something interesting going on here”, Ten sighed and fell on his back, partly on Guanheng’s feet. “Oh well, WeishenV stays boring as ever”

Guanheng doubted that the older had believed him just like that. But, if he was ready to drop it, so was Guanheng.

“Wei _shen_ V, it’s the second tone, remember?” Guanheng commented, trying to guide his thoughts further away from the burning topic. He often did that with Ten’s Mandarin, since the older had specifically asked him to do it. Guanheng liked being the one to teach him, it made him feel like there was indeed something in this world that he could be better at than Ten. (He was also taller than the Thai, but no one talked about height there, it was _forbidden_ )

“Wei _SHEN_ V”, Ten exaggerated the word, but at least he got it right. “Our cold, loveless WeiSHENV”

Oh God, Guanheng hated their group name. It made no sense whatsoever. Oh well, he could only hope that it was a mere project name and that it would change. 

“Did you fight with Kun again or something? Why are you being so dramatic?”

“No, I did NOT”, Ten sighed dramatically again and stretched his arms over his head on the bed. “KUN fought with ME, that _old hag!_ ”

“Old hag?” Guanheng repeated the Mandarin word, to make sure he had heard him right. “Who taught you that word?”

“Uh, Yangyang?”

Of _course._

“Is it bad?”

“Well, it’s obviously bad”, Guanheng rubbed his glabella. “Just don’t use it in a broadcast”

Ten seemed like he was bored and wanted some attention - he was like a household pet sometimes, like a cat who came to him whenever he pleased and rolled on his bed, waiting for some belly scratches. But instead of scratching his belly (because that would be _fucking weird_ ) Guanheng humored him in other ways.

“Want to go through your latest phonetics homework with me?”

“Four is four, fourteen is fourteen, for- fourt-oh _fuck me_ ”, Ten rolled his eyes again and squirmed. “I _hate_ Mandarin Chinese”

“Oof, don’t say that on TV either”, Guanheng genuinely laughed at his reactions. “You started well! Don’t give up now!”

“Pffft”, Ten sat up and moved to sit next to Guanheng. “I’m a professional you know, I can keep lots of things a secret.”

Was that supposed to… mean something? Guanheng looked up and down his face but couldn’t figure out anything from Ten’s grin. How infuriating, how tiresome. 

How… exciting?

Argh, Guanheng didn’t want anything exciting in his life anymore, no. Dejun was driving him crazy enough, crazy with worry and uncertainty. And the training, oh god, he could only hope that it would get better once they had their name out there and they got some fans, but nothing was guaranteed.

Ten made himself comfortable next to Guanheng.

“Could you teach me Cantonese?”

Guanheng blinked.

“You don’t even know basic grammar in Mandarin, and you want me to teach you another language”

“Don’t be an ass!” Ten shoved him but Guanheng barely even moved. “I don’t mean, like, _proper_ Cantonese, just teach me fun stuff”

“Fun stuff”, Guanheng repeated. “Like, curse words or something?”

Ten nodded happily.

“With all due respect, ge”, Guanheng continued with a small smile. “You really are like a middle schooler sometimes”

Ten shoved him so hard that he almost fell off the bed.

“How dare you disrespect me like that!"

“There is no honorifics in Cantonese so, that’s something you should learn first”

“Sure… friend”, Ten grimaced. “Uh, it feels weird. I can’t call you that, you’re obviously a baby”

Guanheng barked a laugh and immediately slapped a hand on his mouth. It had been a while since Guanheng had spent time one-on-one with Ten (if one didn’t count the early mornings and evenings when all they did was wander around like zombies, void of any extra energy) and he had almost forgotten how fun it could be. Guanheng felt his heart get lighter for a moment. When had he last genuinely laughed?

It had been a while.

“Okay, what else should I learn?” Ten crossed his legs and straightened his back, getting ready to receive more information. “Is there some slang I should know?”

“To understand slang, you should know some basic grammar first”

“Okay. Teach me some then”

Guanheng stared at him, unbelieving. 

“Really, now?” He asked. “I thought we were just studying profanities”

“Well, okay, I figured it would be good for me to learn some basic Cantonese conversation skills as well. To keep up with you all”

“To keep up with us?” Guanheng repeated and raised a brow.

“Yeah”, Ten nodded. “You keep speaking it to Dejun all the time! I feel left out”

Guanheng bit his lip to contain a smile, but he felt a bit daring. He honestly hadn't thought that anyone would care. 

“Are you… jealous?”

Ten scoffed.

“I used to be your favorite”

What did he mean by that? Guanheng didn’t know how to figure him out, Ten was complicated but in a completely different way than Dejun. He was more open, he was like fireworks that spread everywhere while Dejun was tinier sparks, shadows, and colored darkness. Ten laid himself right there in the middle, for everyone to see, but it was sometimes so intense that Guanheng couldn’t watch. He was so bright and full of life, he was crazy colorful, flaming. 

Exciting. Hot. And full of confidence.

“ _Hing_ ”, Ten pouted again and Guanheng felt his heart jump up to his throat.

“Oh my god don’t do aegyo!” He shook his head. “You’re still my favorite, just… just don’t do that!”

“You promise?” Ten was clearly playing with him, blinking his big eyes at him like a puppy, but Guanheng felt some redness spread on his own cheeks - _what the hell?_

“Yeah yeah, sure”, he turned away and reached for one of his Korean homework papers that Ten had helpfully dropped on the floor. He turned it around, to reveal a blank side. He could write a couple of words there, to keep track of what he was teaching the older. 

“I’ll tell Dejun”

Guanheng rolled his eyes and chuckled as he reached for a pen on his bedside table.

“Go ahead”, he said and clicked the ballpoint pen. “I don’t think that’ll break his heart.

“Mmh, hopefully no, that would be unfortunate”, Ten was staring at the paper with shining eyes. Then, just as Guanheng had pressed the nib against the paper, he leaned closer to his ear. “Just so you know, out of you all, you were always my favorite”

Guanheng gulped and looked at him. Ten’s eyes looked like they sometimes did on stage, as he was trying to flirt with the camera - no, rather, _seduce and tempt_ the camera. Guanheng wasn’t sure if he saw right but it was almost as though the older looked down and then up quickly. Guanheng bit his lip.

Then, as soon as everything had started, it was gone. Ten blinked and leaned further away.

“Alright!” He sounded way too cheerful all of a sudden. “How do I say _fuck?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not all that happy with the pacing and vocab here so I'll come back to fix things later. Why am I posting this if I'm not 100% satisfied with this yet? Because I'm inpatient lol that's my only reason. I'm also getting sick and tired of staring at the same scenes so I'll just take one night off and return to this in the morning.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s the 25th of January today, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCAS!!!! It feels like yesterday when I was struggling with my A levels and watched the Boss mv with my sister, so many things have changed since then and I’ve been watching you grow as an idol with joy. You’re one of my favorite idols and I’ve had so much fun watching you. Thanks for existing.
> 
> Also… happy birthday to ME! Yup, I share my birthday with this big dork and I couldn’t be happier about it! Ever since I turned fifteen I’ve always just spent my birthday alone, crying and feeling extremely anxious. However, I’m going to try to celebrate it this year - I still don’t feel great, but I can’t exactly escape aging either so might as well celebrate when I have the chance!
> 
> I hope you all have a great day! And now, here’s a new chapter for all of you lovely people who keep making writing worth it even when I struggle. Thank you all, I hope that each and every one of you has a splendid January the 25th! <3

_I mean, there are good moments too._

_But they always make me anxious. Because every happy moment has to be paid back with sadness. Good has to be balanced out with bad. So actually, the best moments I can have are blank. Neutral. Empty._

_But then again… What is that worth? I feel like that’s even worse._

…

  
  


_“How are you, really?”_

“I told you I’m fine”, Guanheng closed the fridge with his hip and took a sip of coke. Ten and Kun were talking quietly, sitting by the kitchen table, but otherwise, the dorm was empty. The others had gone out to eat, to make the most out of the rare free time they had, but Guanheng had decided to use his time differently.

Or, rather, he had received a call just when he had been about to join the others, and had decided that this was more important than the cheap Chinese food would be. He still had ramen in his closet. That would be more than enough for him.

 _“I heard that the first time”,_ Guanheng could almost see her rolling her eyes at the other end. _“That might be enough for mom but it ain’t for me. What’s with the obscurity baby brother?”_

Guanheng took another sip and decided to move to continue the phone call in his own room. Not that anyone could understand him in the kitchen - he might have taught Ten some Cantonese before, but the older didn’t understand anywhere near enough for it to become an issue. _Pineapple bread_ , _fuck,_ and ‘ _Do you speak English’_ were rarely included in Guanheng’s private phone calls. However, he felt weird talking about them while they were there, even if he did it in a way that they couldn’t understand.

“Okay, I’m as fine as I could be”, Guanheng reframed. “It’s better than it used to be. My body is more accustomed to the training. It’s hard, but it’s going to be worth it”

 _“That’s more like it”_ , Crystal sounded happier. “ _When are you going to start filming? You need to send me clips from your photoshoots, I demand to be the first one to see”_

Crystal had been supporting him from the very start. Even when his parents had been a little hesitant (he couldn’t become a doctor if he skipped school for idol training) and his two other sisters hadn’t really known what to say, Crystal had encouraged him to take the step and fly to Korea.

 _“Who knows what other possibilities it might offer you!_ ” She had said excitedly. _“Call them back! You won’t get an offer like this twice!”_

Crystal was the oldest of the four siblings. There was her, then Christina, then Cecilia, and then him, the youngest and only boy in the bunch. Usually, the siblings with the smallest age gap were the closest, and in a way, growing up, Guanheng had indeed been the closest with Cecilia with whom he only had a two-year gap.

But Guanheng had also fought with her the most. Being so close in age, they had bickered a lot, and sometimes their fights had been fierce, going on for days since they both had the ability to be very petty. By the extent, Christina had been included in them too.

Crystal had thus been kind of above that, and she had only ever adored Guanheng. Their age difference wasn’t massive, five years, but it was enough that they hadn’t been in puberty at the same time, and Crystal had always grown well past the ages that Guanheng was going through. She was able to look back and understand that he was still growing, that he was significantly younger and should be treated as such. And Guanheng had always looked up to his oldest sister. There were multiple pictures of his sister carrying him around, dressing him, and doing his hair, and Guanheng let her because she was cool.

Now that they were both adults (well, apparently it would take a while still before Crystal saw him as one, if she ever would) their relationship was different. Guanheng had gone to a boarding school from middle school up and to be honest, that had made his relationship with his sisters better, since they had started to value the time they spent together, instead of fighting all the time. Guanheng’s parents were busy with work, living in Macau and running a big family wasn’t cheap, so Guanheng had basically been raised by his sisters.

 _“It shows”,_ Ten had commented quite fast after Guanheng had entered the company.

 _“What do you mean?”_ Guanheng had asked with his broken English that had, at the time, been better than his Korean. 

Ten had just shrugged and returned to his stretching.

 _“There’s something feminine about you”,_ he said. _“Something softer. You’re not girly or anything, you just seem… like someone who has three big sisters”_

Yukhei had said the same thing. And Yangyang. Guanheng still had no idea what exactly they meant but he was glad. He loved his sisters, if their touch could be seen on him, then it was only a positive trait.

 _“How are you dealing with your friends?”_ Crystal asked, moving on from the topic of his well being. Or maybe his relationships were a part of that too? _“Are the other guys being nice to you?”_

“Yeah they are, _mom_ ”, Guanheng rolled his eyes in turn and closed the door to his room behind himself. “I’ve told you about them all, haven’t I? Ten and Kun help me a lot and the others are learning with me. We are a good team”

_“Don’t let them help you too much. Remember, you have to stand out from the group if you want to have a career in the business”_

“I know”, Guanheng laid on his bed and looked at the ever grey, uneven ceiling. “I’d rather not see them as my enemies though. It’s hard enough without that”

 _“Oh”,_ Guanheng could hear Crystal going even deeper into her big sister mode. He didn’t mind it anymore - he was no longer an adolescent who shied away from affection in embarrassment. Not like he had ever been quite like that. _“Do you have something on your heart?_

_I caught one of my groupmates cutting and I fear that he will fall deeper into his depression but there is nothing I can do about it. I want him to do well, I care about him more than I should and I know that it’s wrong but I can’t help feeling this way. And my heart feels like it’s a wet towel, being twisted and wrung and I don’t know what to do or what to think._

Crystal had been the first to… notice. They had never exactly talked about it, they had never used those words between them, but Crystal had tested the ice carefully. She knew about Guanheng’s… What his heart thought about people. That he sometimes had crushes on men as well.

Guanheng had never pursued those crushes before because he knew just how frowned upon that was. And he knew how unlikely it was that any of the guys returned his feelings, so he didn’t waste a single thought on that. He had realized that his adoration was unnatural but… as long as no one knew, he was safe, right? And he was alright with being alone, it wasn’t like he had any time for relationships anyway so… yeah.

Gosh, he hated thinking too deeply, it always made him frustrated. He pulled his hair and groaned.

“It’s complicated”, he said. “I mean, yeah? But I can’t really do anything about it”

_Protective sister mode activated._

_“Is someone being mean to you?”_

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s quite the opposite if I’m honest”

_“Oh”, Nosy sister mode activated. “Is there… someone? Have you met someone?”_

“Maybe?” Guanheng said and immediately regretted it, shaking his head. “Or, no, it’s not like that, it’s not like I could do anything about it anyway I just feel… I feel torn”

Yeah, he might be close to his siblings but he still wasn’t someone who spoke about his feelings with them. He had patted Cecilia’s back and handed her tissues when she had broken up with her first boyfriend, and he had kind of been around and listened while his sisters had opened up to each other but him?

Nah. Not really.

So it was a surprise to him too, how freely he was able to tell Crystal about it. His sister stayed quiet for a while 

_“It must be serious then, huh?”_

“What?”

_“I feel like you’ve never had anyone before. Not that I know of. What’s special about… him?”_

“I told you, it doesn’t matter, it would never work out”

 _“And that doesn’t matter to me”_ , Crystal huffed. _“I want to know if my little brother is in love”_

It was cheesy but Crystal didn’t say it that way. She was good at reading him, even through the line. 

_“It’s not like you can tell anyone else either”,_ she continued. Her words really hurt but Guanheng knew that his reality was exactly like that. Crystal wasn’t saying that what he felt was wrong, she just understood the situation. Like she always did. 

Maybe it was just because she was a girl. Or, because she was the oldest child. Or because she really was just that cool.

“Okay”, Guanheng sighed because somewhere deep, deep inside, he really wanted to say some things. “It’s just… Do you remember the other guy born in 1999, who will debut with me?”

_“Oh, the one from Guangdong? Xiao… Dejun?”_

“Yes, him. I-”

 _“Oh, he is very cute!”_ Crystal cut him off but Guanheng honestly didn’t mind - not when she said something like that. _“I saw a video of him singing with his father and brother. It was very touching”_

“Yeah, he is an amazing vocalist”, Guanheng nodded and felt something light up in his heart. He felt… proud. “The moment he came, he was put into my training group, he skipped the early stage completely. And he is so good at playing the guitar too

Crystal laughed a little, and Guanheng felt a bit self-conscious. Had he said something stupid.

 _“I’m glad you met him then”,_ she said. _“Tell me more!”_

He didn’t need to be asked twice.

When Guanheng finally ended the call, he didn’t know how exactly to feel. He laid in his bed next to his phone, his heart feeling lighter than in a long time. Guanheng knew that his crush was idiotic, but for a short while, he could hug his pillow like a teenage girl and just… just enjoy the feeling. The frustrating feeling that sent redness on his cheeks and made him squeal against his pillow. But also the great feeling of his heart feeling warmer at the thought of Dejun’s eye smile and laughter.

Sometimes people needed to let out some steam that way. Guanheng screamed into his pillow, kicked air a few times, and then went limp. 

Argh. How annoying.

“Um, when you’re done…”

He immediately sat up upon hearing Ten’s voice and saw him at the door. How long had he been standing there? Guanheng’s hair was a mess and his whole face must have been bright red, he regretted _everything._

“What?” he asked, trying to sound like he had it all together. Ten just chuckled and turned around.

“Kun is making fried rice”, he yelled while walking away. “It’s ready in fifteen minutes”

“Sure!” Guanheng fell back on the bed and hoped that the ground would just open and eat him. Maybe that would be nice.

When the others returned, Dejun had apparently gotten some sort of an inspiration boost since he immediately took his guitar from the living room where he had left it after his latest busking session with Yangyang and disappeared into his room.

“I don’t know, we just talked about kittens and football and stuff”, Yangyang shrugged when Kun asked him about it. “Who knows about Dejun”

Yeah, who knew.

Guanheng stopped to listen behind his door and heard soft singing and guitar chords. He was doing better.

And Guanheng smiled. Maybe they would be alright. 

...

  
  


But then he noticed new lines the night before the filming of their first teaser.

“Where did you get the blades?”

“Yell a bit louder now, would you?” Dejun was tense like they all were in a way. He pulled his hand free from Guanheng’s grasp and spilled his water in the process. None of them paid it any attention though.

“Dejun, I’m worried about you-”

“Be a bit more worried about my career”, Dejun put his glass down forcefully. “I’m fine, just let it go”

Guanheng didn’t exactly have any other choice. Dejun stomped out of the room to join the others having dinner around their big kitchen table, and they both knew that he just couldn’t bring something like that up there. The thing was, they had been training the whole day and he hadn’t gotten a single moment like that together with Dejun. And poof, it was gone again.

Dejun was so good at acting like he was fine. He used the utensils and handed others rice without anyone noticing that there was something wrong with his hands. Guanheng kept his eyes away from him as he kept nibbling on his own food. Kun asked him if he was okay - how ridiculous, their leader had no idea who actually needed help in his group.

He excused himself early and went to bed upset and torn.

...

“I’m sorry, Guanheng.”

“Huh?”

He hadn’t been able to sleep all that well, the makeup noonas had spread so much bb cream under his eyes, he felt like his face was made of porcelain. He looked up at Dejun who was leaning closer to the mirror next to him, staring deep into his own eyes.

“I’m sorry for being mean”, he said. No explanation, no excuse, just a sincere apology.

“It’s fine”, Guanheng just answered. He hadn’t expected an apology, least of all at that moment.

“No, it’s not”

“Okay”, Guanheng looked at the mirror as well. “Maybe it wasn’t but it is now. I was worried”

“I know”, Dejun muttered and looked down. His bent eyelashes looked even longer than before. “I just don’t know how to deal with… someone knowing… anyway, how do I look?”

He turned towards Guanheng, looking unsure.

“Uh” Guanheng’s brain was working way too slowly, while Dejun's nervous state made him move way too quickly.

“There’s too much gel in my hair, isn’t there”, Dejun turned back towards the mirror. “And my cheekbones look too sharp”

“No, they don’t”, Guanheng shook his head and stood up to step next to him, to see himself from the same mirror. Dejun looked so weird through the mirror, but Guanheng knew that to his eyes, he did too. “If someone has too much gel in their hair, it’s me. Seriously, I look like some prepubescent posh schoolboy”

“They _did_ put a lot of gel”, Dejun nodded and turned towards him, to touch his hair carefully. “It almost feels sticky”

“Does it?”

Guanheng watched as Dejun played with his hair a little. His touch felt good somehow. Whenever Dejun touched him he was so careful and soft, Guanheng sometimes wondered if the others felt the same way. But he obviously couldn't ask without seeming... suspicious.

"It's better than Kun's at least", Dejun muttered so quietly that Guanheng had trouble hearing it.

"Thank goodness", he answered with a similar tone. "It must be my youthful genes"

"You have great genes"

_Knock..._

_Knock..._

_Knock._

Three slowest knocks he had ever heard broke the bubble and they both turned to look at the door where Ten was, knocking against the doorframe with a grin on his face.

“Whenever you’re done”, he said. “I think we’re starting soon”

Any pinkness on Guanheng’s face was just makeup. In case anyone asked.

...

Dejun was slightly awkward with the camera at first. Guanheng noticed, watching him from the shadows. But as the director gave him praise, he started to grow more confident and his cold, serious stares towards the camera grew more powerful. Guanheng shot him a thumbs up and Dejun smiled a little. He was so cute.

Many others were slightly awkward too - okay, mainly just Kun and Yangyang. But then, Guanheng saw Ten walk in and suddenly the whole atmosphere changed. He played with the camera, took his space, and did it all with so much ease, his shooting was done in less than a half of the time it had taken from the people before him. 

He shot Guanheng a wink in between his shots. Guanheng just showed him a thumbs up as well and then turned away to hit his head against the wall. 

Well, figuratively. His hairstylist would have killed him if he saw how he was treating his creation.

  
  


...

  
  


“I watched you film”

“You did?” 

“Mmhh”

“Then how was it?”

“Not bad”

Ten smirked and Guanheng couldn’t help but laugh. It probably came off as awkward but he still wasn’t comfortable in front of cameras. No, that wasn’t true - he wasn’t comfortable when he had to improvise, appear natural. If he had to model, he was alright (he had had to work on that too) but as for the ‘behind the scenes’ kind of acting… he still wasn’t all that good.

Ten had his on-set-smirk on and he kept shooting those flirty glances at Guanheng that he knew would be pointed out by fans. Guanheng had seen them before, just… just never directed at him.

He kept giggling until the cameras were pointed away from them.

“Good job didi”, Ten whispered as they stood up from the sofa to continue their shoot. “They’re going to love you”

Ten slapped him on the ass and efficiently silenced him while walking away. 

...

  
  


“And then I told him. _‘Yo, there is need not to be upset’_ -”

“Word order ge, there IS NO NEED to be upset”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. And can you imagine, he flipped totally and said ‘me being upset is the only way we get done things’”

Another word order mistake. But Guanheng let that slide since he had his mouth full of noodles. 

“Doyoung is such an ass”, Ten rolled his eyes. “I just want us to kick their asses on music charts”

“I don’t think that’s possible”, Guanheng finally said after swallowing. Yeah, they were singing in Chinese, targeting China that already didn’t view them well for being basically Korean at the core so charting was a distant dream. 

“Yeah, me neither”, Ten sighed. “But that’s like a dream that drives me forward. I _so_ want to punch that expression from his face sometimes”

“Smack”

“What?”

“Use the word smack. It’s more fitting, less… rough”

“Oh. Right. But what if… I enjoy rough?”

Guanheng blinked and watched as Ten licked his chopsticks clean. Had he understood the implication... Ah, of course not, he wouldn’t just say something like that in the broad daylight in the practice room while licking his chopsticks slowly and looking straight into Guanheng’s eyes-

“Uh anyway”, Guanheng looked down at his food. “Tell me more about how you want to hit Doyoung hyung?”

“Nah, I think I’m done talking about my _frustrations_ ”, Ten put his chopsticks down. “You should tell me yours”

What the _fuck._

“Ye- Yeah I don’t think that’s necessary”

“Aw, you know you can trust hyung, right?”

“Right”, Guanheng nodded and shoved three dumplings into his mouth at once, effectively shutting himself up before he could say something stupid. Ten just laughed softly and started collecting the trash.

Guanheng noticed Dejun at the corner of the practice room, playing his guitar absent-mindedly. He smiled at Guanheng shyly and Guanheng smiled back, his cheeks full of dumplings and his heart taking an extra jump for who knew why.

_I feel torn._

Gosh, he hated his stupid, inexperienced heart so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeah I know, it ain't my best A quality but I really wanted to get this done today. Such an overused excuse. But that's all I have. Anyways, once again, I hope you have a great day! I'll go and eat some cheesecake!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 If you liked it, feel free to hit kudos or leave a comment down below - I'm very insecure so a simple "I liked this" can go a really long way. I take constructive criticism too, just don't be mean about it.
> 
> Have a great day and I hope I'll see you again soon!


End file.
